


To Be or Not To Be

by hellostarlight20



Series: We Are Never Alone [7]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Bad Ass Heroines, Episode AU: s03e08-09 Human Nature/Family of Blood, F/M, Foreshadowing, Human, Jack Harkness as a regular human, Rose and Martha as BFF, The Doctor and Jack as brothers, The Doctor as Human, Torchwood - Freeform, Very much AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 23:16:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 67,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4198755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellostarlight20/pseuds/hellostarlight20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The four of them have managed to survive time traveling across the universe, finding each other, living together in 1969, Martha’s family, a not so leisurely stroll on the leisure planet Midnight, Rose and the Doctor’s marriage and the revelation about Dalek Caan escaping…but can Rose and Martha survive the Doctor and Jack as humans?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Running. He’d only wanted to explore a bit. Show off a beautiful planet, get lost in the medical museum with Martha. Make love to Rose beneath the waterfalls. Honestly, was that so difficult a thing to ask?

In addition to the entire medical history of the sector and the most gorgeous waterfalls in the quadrant, Silous also had 4 glass containers filled with green gaseous creatures. They were the last of their kind and, as medical history museum and library of the entire sector, Silous was the natural place for them.

They were also smart. And angry. And cunning. And they’d escaped.

They’d escaped some time ago, but the scientists in charge, terrified-weak-scared-cowards that they turned out to be, hadn’t said anything. And then they were dead scientists. Because when beings evolve not all of a species do so.

These were the ones evolutionarily left behind; the beings still so short-lived, so predatory that they no longer fit into the new society. The new corporeal society where the physical offshoots no longer needed to infect-infest-devour bodies to live.

It had seemed like a good place to visit. A little science, a little history, a little exploration.

Making love to Rose at the base of the waterfalls. Walking in the gardens with her. Exploring this new world and enjoying just being with her. _(Don’t leave me, how long you gonna stay with me, marry me.)_

The Doctor cursed and tightened his grip on Rose’s hand as he picked up speed and ran faster. Behind him he heard the whispers of the gaseous creatures, beings he thought long extinct-evolved-progressed.

“How long had they been kept in those jars? How long could they have survived?” he muttered. And ran faster.

Things now chasing them through the rocky terrain of Silous, past waterfalls he once planned to make love to Rose in and that restaurant Martha wanted to try, and gaining quickly. Beside him, Jack and Martha kept up.

_Time Lord…_  
So much energy…  
Unable to die…  
Immortal…Immortal…Immortal… 

They wanted him and not in a cuddly kind of way. Worse yet, they didn’t just want him. They wanted Jack, too.

The TARDIS came into view and he suddenly wished he’d not only installed the remote call button Rose had joked about when they were first trapped in 1969, but an automatic door opener. No time to dig out the key now!

“You laughed about the remote key!” Rose managed through gasps for air as he did, indeed, dig out his key to manually open the door.

Suddenly the TARDIS doors opened and the four of them tumbled through. The doors automatically slammed closed behind them and he took a moment to pull Rose too him, to hold her close, to keep her there. With him. Standing and pulling her along, he made his way to the console.

“You’re okay?” he demanded, hands running down her body even as he circled the TARDIS controls. Hit buttons, slammed down levers. “No cuts or bruises? Nothing serious?”

She shook her head and he nodded, moving away to flick switches. Controlled panic. “Jack, raise the shields!”

Rose and Martha immediately took their spots around the controls and he’d never been so grateful he had others to help pilot the TARDIS as he did right then. They both looked terrified, but did their part to dematerialize the TARDIS as quickly as possible.

With four people working the controls, they left Silous far faster and easier than he’d expected. ( _Did they see you? Martha did they see you?_ He demanded. _I don’t know._ She sounded scared and vulnerable. _But did they see you?_ He repeated. _I don’t know. I was too busy running._ She shouted back, voice trembling. _Martha, it’s important. Did they see your face?_ He needed to escape to run to leave. To show no weakness. Not to Martha. Not to her. _No, they couldn’t have._ )

“Doctor?” Rose shouted and left her position at the controls to leap across the distance to him.

The TARDIS spun around him no matter how he tried to shake it off, right himself. Rose’s hands felt like air, ethereal and ghostly and insubstantial. Then suddenly they gripped him real-substantial-physical-there- _here_.

Damn it! Now wasn’t the time for a time ripple!

The Doctor shook his head violently, desperate to dislodge the afterimages and the clawing-biting-itching feeling that he’d done this before and again and still.

“Did they see you?” He asked Rose.

Held her close, fingers wrapped around her upper arms, around the bonding tattoos. _Mine._

The TARDIS could fly herself for a minute. And Jack was there. Jack. Had they seen him? Please, the Doctor begged. _Please let them only have seen me. Please let me have been fast enough. Please don’t let them find Rose. Not Rose. Please._

“No.” Rose shook her head. She gasped and he cursed, blocking their bond. He didn’t want her any more upset and scared than she already was. Didn’t want her to know the terror-rage-fear-hopelessness he felt.

Because he wouldn’t be responsible for another genocide.  
He’d been responsible for far too many already.

Rose cried out again. And again he cursed. “Stop it,” she said through gritted teeth. “Whatever you don’t want me to see stop blocking our bond. Hurts.”

“Rose.” He took her by the shoulders and held her tight. Eased the bond open and wondered at how strong it had become. “I’m sorry. But I—they’re the last.” His voice caught. “Last of their kind—I can’t destroy….” The words trailed off.

Not even to save her?  
Could he kill to save her?  
Destroy the last of a dying species to save her?  
 _ **Yes.**_

And the depth of his rage-anger-snarling-primal-need to protect his mate terrified him. He’d kill to save her from being devoured by one of those creatures. He’d kill-destroy-tear anything. Everything.

“Doctor,” she whispered. She took his hand and gripped his fingers tightly. Grounded him. The TARDIS stopped tilting like a carnival ride and the time ripples cleared from his vision and yes. Rose. Grounded. Here with him.

“Don’t. Don’t do it.” She said. “We’ll run. We’re good at that, yeah?”

The TARDIS shook and Jack cursed behind them. Though he had to have heard their conversation he said nothing. Jack understood. The Doctor hated it, hated the burden his friend shared, but knew he understood. He glanced at Martha, saw confusion but loyalty and felt a surge of affection for her.

“Jack, they want you, too.” He admitted harshly, surprising himself with his honesty.

Blimey, this family thing had really changed him.

Martha gasped in a quick breath but remained quiet. She looked sick, but didn’t contradict them. Jack raced around the console, piloting the TARDIS himself, but every time he passed Martha, he physically touched her in some way.

Reassurance.  
Comfort.  
Encouragement.  
Faith.

“I know.” Jack met his gaze, bleak-hard-knowing. Then he grinned, that wide, cocky _everything will be all right_ grin. “We’ll run, like Rose said.”

The grin didn’t fool the Doctor, but then it probably wasn’t meant to. He nodded once, refused to acknowledge the memory of a Game Station and a goodbye kiss and death.

“We’ll run,” Martha agreed and the Doctor felt another surge of affection for her. “But,” she said in a harsh voice from her spot at the controls. “What’s happening? What were those creatures?”

The TARDIS shuddered again and he cursed. Reluctantly releasing Rose, the Doctor flipped a couple switches and cursed again. 

“Argh! They’re following us.” His hands combed through his hair. Frantic and afraid and why couldn’t a walk through a planet, a swim in the waterfalls, a trip to the museum with his wife be simple?

He so wasn’t retiring to Silous.

“How can they do that?” Martha demanded, looking from him to Jack and back again. “You’ve got a _time machine_.”

“Stolen technology,” he spat, annoyed now with the realization that he’d done something like this before. Jumped time tracks. He glared across at Jack, though that glare was born more from dread and helplessness and fear than any real condemnation. “They’ve got a Time Agent’s vortex manipulator.”

“Hey, don’t look at me!” Jack shouted over the sound of the TARDIS’s alarms and the rocking of the ship. “Mine doesn’t work.” He held up his wrist even as he watched the controls. “Hasn’t in a few decades.”

“Remind me to fix that once we’re out of this,” the Doctor said.

If he had fixed Jack’s manipulator, then maybe Jack could’ve jumped out with Martha and Rose. Kept them safe. Too late for self-recriminations now.

But he did catch Rose’s look and knew after they survived (assuming they did) being chased by these hunters in their stolen ship with their stolen technology (and where the hell had they got all that? Certainly not from Silous and just how the hell long had they been free from their containment? How much longer would they survive?) he’d have to admit to Jack that he could’ve fixed the vortex manipulator all along.

But that was for a non-life and death, clearly mauve alert situation.

“We can out run them though, yeah?” Rose asked, voice far calmer than the pounding along their bond indicated.

God, but he loved this woman.

“Like we did when we tracked Jack’s Chula ambulance?” Rose continued, though she didn’t leave her position by the controls. “We can lose it like he tried to lose us.”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor admitted. Desperate and scared and grasping at any straw and very much afraid none of them would work. “I don’t know if we can. They’ve caught our scent. That’s how they hunt.”

He glanced at Jack and knew the answer. Then, he’d slaved the TARDIS’s computer to the Chula ambulance, and while he had great faith in his ship’s ability to lose a pursuer, he had less faith in one with such a clear intent on tracking him and Jack down.

“Track us even in space?” Rose asked, skeptical.

“Highly developed sense,” the Doctor said. “Probably did something to their ship to enhance the scanners to include their scent sense.”

They couldn’t land. For 3 months, or as long as the hunters had remaining, they wouldn’t be able to land anyplace and the Doctor didn’t know if the TARDIS could continuously run for that long.

She hummed, and even over sounds of pursuit and over the alarms and fear from Rose and sparks now burning along Her wires, the Doctor knew his ship wanted to run. He wondered what She saw, but couldn’t do that to Her. To any of them.

“They never stop. Well, 3 months,” he said as the ship rocked again. “They have a life span of 3 months and I don’t know how long they’ve already been free from their gaseous container. Or the rate they degrade once they inhabit a host.”

And he planned to have a word with the Silousian scientists after all this. Not only was keeping sentient life caged like that against the Shadow Proclamation, but it was downright cruel.

The Doctor looked from Jack to Martha to Rose. Watched his wife. Protect-love-hold-guard-safe-mine. _(I could save the world but lose you… The only question I have now, Doctor, is whether or not you care enough about me to stay with me…How long you gonna stay with me?...I’m terrified of losing you.)_

“Doctor, if we have to run, we run.” Martha’s voice broke into his thoughts and he looked at her. Friend. Sister. Family.

He couldn’t put her in danger, either. None of them. But they were all in danger because they knew him. Because they traveled with him.

_**Stop it!** _

He didn’t hear the words so much as the feel of them from Rose. She glared at him, and while he could see the anxiety bubbling beneath that glare, he also saw concern and love. The Doctor didn’t know how she knew what he was thinking, their bond shouldn’t be that strong or that focused, but was grateful to her for stopping the whirling train of his thoughts.

“They can follow us wherever we go, right across the universe,” he said. “The TARDIS can’t stay in the Vortex that long, not like this. It’ll fry her. They’re never going to stop…” He looked to Jack. “Never.”

“Do it.” Jack nodded, firm in his belief. _(Never doubted him. Never will.)_

“Do it,” Martha reiterated, and though her voice shook, her gaze never did.

“Doctor,” Rose said and he felt the time slipping away. Slipped from him. “If we can’t run, do what you need to.”

Time snapped back and he felt the urgency once more beat through him even as the TARDIS shuddered and ran and flew through the Vortex.

****  
“What?” Martha demanded, utterly confused. “What do you mean _change_? How can you possibly change?”

Jack caught her hands and held her close. Normally his touch comforted and aroused her. Now it terrified her and no amount of soft looks and brave, false smiles helped. Her heart thundered in her ears and she barely heard her lover over the sound of it.

“Martha, love, listen to me,” he said and his voice cracked.

And she hated, oh absolutely _hated_ that the first time Jack had called her anything other than Martha, had used such a term of affection, was now. Now when she was terrified and the Doctor was rushing around the console room and Rose was frozen in place an equally terrified look on her face as the Doctor spouted rules for what was about to happen.

“They’re like vampires,” Jack continued, his voice back under control but without his normal smooth cadence. “And if they find either of us,” he nodded to the Doctor who now had Rose wrapped around him as if they could merge into one another. “They’ll live for far longer than the 3 months they have.”

“They’ll use my life span as a Time Lord and my remaining regenerations to hunt and propagate across the galaxy.” The Doctor pulled back from Rose, but only enough to cup her face and press his forehead to hers.

Martha looked away from the private moment and steadily held Jack’s gaze. Stripped down and open and bared to her and the depth of emotion in his gaze took her breath away. Martha cursed these creatures and for a heartbeat wanted them to die. Wanted to destroy them.

She took a deep breath and mentally stepped back from the fierce hatred welling within her. She promised to cure, to heal. _(I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts…I will enter only for the good of my patients.)_ She’d had the Hippocratic Oath memorized since she was nine.

She nodded though wondered if Jack understood what she’d nodded to—she understood and Martha forced the rage and hatred away. His hands gripped her arms tightly for another moment then relaxed. He looked just as intense, just as passionate, but seemed almost…settled. Calm.

“And if they find me, they’ll never die.”

Martha’s breath hitched but she nodded again, this time in acceptance. “Wh-What—” She broke off and sucked in a deep breath. When she spoke again it was in a stronger voice, one that had been honed from months of traveling with the Doctor. “What happens?”

“We change,” the Doctor said, pulling away from Rose who stood rigid by the console, her face a mask hiding all her emotions. It’d been bare minutes since they agreed to hide from the hunters. “Become completely human.”

Jack shuddered and Martha wondered, but didn’t ask, if it was possible for him to stay completely human. To remain as he once was, before the Daleks and the Time Vortex. He didn’t blame Rose and Martha knew that. He wouldn’t have been alive, let alone found them again—found _her_ —if he’d died in that battle.

But to live as a human, able to die. Martha looked up at him, watched him lick his lips at the thought, knew he wondered the same thing as she. Did he want to die? Want to be able to? He said nothing. Instead he pulled Martha tight to him and kissed her hungrily.

“Martha,” he said in a fierce whisper as a machine descended from the vaulted ceiling of the TARDIS. “Martha, I—”

“Don’t,” she hissed. “Don’t you dare say it, Jack Harkness.”

Because she didn’t want to hear the words. Didn’t know if she was ready. And sure as hell didn’t want him to say them _now_.

Martha nodded, a silent tear ran down her cheek but she drew tall, wiped impatiently at her face, and went to stand by Rose. The other woman took her hand and gripped it tight. They had to pack, get ready for this new adventure.

They stayed perfectly still and watched Jack and the Doctor change right before their eyes. It was the hardest thing Martha had ever done.

****  
The second to last thing Jack saw was the Doctor—worried and scared and regret and damn near broken—standing over him.

“Don’t let me forget her,” Jack begged in a hoarse whisper.

The Doctor nodded, his brown gaze shooting between Jack and Rose and Martha. “The TARDIS will program in a history and necessary skills. She’ll make sure you’re everything you need to be for the next 3 months.”

Jack nodded swallowed hard—this was going to hurt. Hurt more than death, _all_ the deaths he’d already experienced and all the coming back he both cursed and embraced. He slid his gaze past the Doctor but he spoke to his friend and the TARDIS. “Don’t let me forget her.”

The last thing he saw was Martha gripping Rose’s hand, unblinking, her gaze firmly on his.

****  
Rose hefted the bag the TARDIS had waiting for her and hurried back down to the console room. She knew the TARDIS wouldn’t let the Doctor change before she returned, but Rose also knew her husband. No way in the multiverse would he want her to witness the agony of his changing.

Tough.

“Come on,” Martha said as she hefted her own bag. “I think we have everything.”

“If not, we can come back,” Rose said in a very sad attempt at levity.

She couldn’t seem to find one bright spot in their situation.

Jack already lay on the grating by the doors, unconscious. The Doctor stood at the console, long fingers gripping the edges, knuckles turning white. He looked tired and haggard and terrified. He looked up as she entered and Rose felt his love and uncertainty and hope across their bond.

She had so many questions, but they hadn’t time. And she’d tease him about that later, about the Time Lord always, always running out of time.

Rose swallowed hard and asked point blank, “Will it break our bond?” 

“No.” He crossed the distance between them, hands wrapped around her upper arms, fingers caressing their bonding tattoos. He did that a lot, since their marriage. As if the knowledge of those tattoos, that link, grounded him somehow. And what about those? Would he know what they were?

“It won’t be as strong but it’ll be there,” the Doctor said, voice low and harsh and steeped in agony. “But I won’t forget you, Rose.”

“Better not,” she replied. The words stuck in her throat.

“I could never forget you, Rose Tyler,” he breathed against her lips.

She wrapped her arms around him and held close. Questions and fears and half-formed worries tumbled in her brain but all she said was, “Come back to me, Doctor.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They changed so they didn’t kill the last of a dying species. They changed to protect the women they loved. But how much did they really change from the Doctor and Jack? (NSFW with a Possessive!Doctor)

It was dark when they finally arrived at the manor house, and much colder than when they’d started out.

Jack had lost track of time as they walked the 11 kilometers along the coast, along roads that really were nonexistent, from the train station in Walmar. They’d been late in leaving London and very late in arriving at Walmar, and hadn’t been able to afford to hire anyone to drive them from there to Broad Oak Manor.

So they’d walked.

The wind whipped along from The Channel, bitterly cold on this late February night. But the Kentish air smelled clean and fresh and so unlike the thick London smog he’d never managed to grow used to that Jack couldn’t help but breathe deeper. He bet the view from the cliffs was stunning.

Maybe they could see across The Channel to France on a clear day. Not that he really wanted to return to France, not after the death and dying and screaming he’d witnessed. Been a part of. Caused. But he heard Paris was beautiful in the spring and would very much like to wipe (death, screaming, blood, dying-dead-dying) from his mind and his memories.

_(The stench of mustard gas from his nostrils, melting his lungs, burning him from the inside out. Dead. Gasp of life with the reek the dead and the gas and the dying and always, always him.)_

Beside him, Martha shivered despite her heavy wool coat and shifted the bag she carried from one hand to the next. Jack frowned. Had she carried that the entire distance? He couldn’t remember. And where had she got that light brown leather satchel draped across her body? It looked like one he’d used during the War. What did she carry in that bag?

Jack looked over at Rose, carrying a similarly heavy looking bag. Had she carried it the entire 11 kilometers, as well?

“Here.” He said to Martha who walked closest to him. She looked up at him with surprise. And something else he couldn’t see in the waxing moonlight. Jack reached over and took the bag, fingers caressing hers with the lightest of touches. “I’ll carry that.”

His words echoed sharply in the dark, quiet night, and for a moment Jack wanted to take them back, silence them, afraid someone might hear.

Who? And what did it matter? Wasn’t like they were hiding from anyone or slinking around the property; they were supposed to be here. He shook that thought away and gave Martha a small smile, one he hoped she understood in the moonlight. She hesitantly smiled back at him, gaze still shadowed.

Jack started to say something, he didn’t know what but it seemed important, when Rose asked, “Is this it?”

She sounded tired and tense, more so than the walk, long as it was, warranted. Jack wondered what had happened. Had she fought with John? Jack admitted, he’d been lost in thought for the last kilometer or so and hadn’t paid attention to what the others were doing.

He looked at the other man, but other than taking the heavy bag from Rose, John remained uncharacteristically silent. Jack pulled his hat down further to cover his ears, and stuffed his free hand in the pocket of his leather coat.

“Yes,” John finally said. “You and Martha stay here. It’s late, but we start tomorrow and we need to rest before then.” John looked to Rose, gaze holding hers for several moments then slid over Martha with a frown. “Jack and I will wake the household.”

Rose looked at John for a long silent moment, then turned her gaze to him. As with Martha’s strange look, Jack found he couldn’t read her, couldn’t understand the look she gave him—tense-angry-afraid-tired-wary. It made no sense, but then she shifted closer to Martha. The two women took the bags again and both turned away.

John did the talking, he always did; John was the charming one, after all. The servants fused over them, and Mr. Fitzpatrick himself came out to greet them with promises of an early start on the morrow.

“That’s fine, sir,” John said with his normal overexcited grin. “We look forward to it.”

The housekeeper tutted, and gave John several tins with tea, bread, and sausages for the morning. He looked down at the tins in confusion but offered a cheery _Thanks!_ before turning away.

Rose and Martha joined them, once more carrying their bags. Jack immediately took Martha’s and frowned as he tried to remember…something. It was there, right at the back of his mind. But then Martha looked up at him (expectation and hope and wariness) and offered a hesitant grin and Jack forgot it.

John transferred the tins to Rose and took her bag and without another word they were crossing the grounds to the opposite end of the property where the cottage sat, just far enough away from the main house to be private.

“I’m knackered,” Martha muttered as they neared the cottage.

“We’ll unpack tomorrow,” Rose agreed.

They shared another look, and all Jack could really say about it was that it was long and indecipherable as if they shared a secret they didn’t want he or John to know. What was going on between these two?

Martha had been part of Rose’s household for ages now. Rose tended to pick up people—friends and servants alike and they’d always been close. But that look told of more than simple friendship. Then again, it wasn’t his business what Rose did with her maid.

All Jack wanted at the moment was to sleep. _(Don’t let go. Don’t let your brother’s hand go. You killed him. It’s your fault he’s dead.)_ Jack shook his head and wondered where the vision had come from. Bombardments and running and sand kicking up and screams of terror and calls of the dying.

Maybe something from the War. He’d find the whisky he always kept in his bag for nights like this and drown out the screams and cries before trying to sleep.

****  
John woke instantly just before sunrise as if he knew the exact time. Fully alert, content and excited and utterly happy, his mouth grazed his wife’s bare shoulder where the chemise she wore to bed had fallen away, tempting him. His fingers splayed over her belly as he woke her his favorite way.

Rose mumbled in her sleep, pushed back against him, and shuddered in need. Even asleep, she was so responsive, so eager to his every touch. Alive beneath his fingers.

He loved waking her with his mouth on her, tasting her to orgasm before she’d fully roused. Demure and quiet in public as a proper lady should be, she was wanton and passionate in their bed.

And last night, despite her exhaustion at finally arriving at Broad Oak, she’d been loud enough to wake the entire cottage.

“You need to be quiet, my heart,” he whispered, hand sliding under the chemise, up her smooth skin to cup her breast.

Her nipple instantly pebbled to his touch and he pinched the hard nub. He nipped along her back when she arched into his hand.

“I’m sure Mr. Fitzgerald, Himself, could hear you clear across to the house. And I don’t want him to know how passionate my wife is. What she sounds like when she screams my name. How beautiful she is when she falls apart to my touch.” John nipped at the sensitive spot where shoulder and neck met, bit harder and felt Rose shudder out a breath. _“You are mine.”_

For a heartbeat Rose stiffened in his arms and he wondered if he’d shocked her. He hadn’t said those words before, not that he hadn’t meant them. From the moment he’d met Rose, he’d wanted her. Loved her.

He’d done all this for her.

John ran his tongue over the mark he’d made and waited for her to adjust, to shudder in his arms and turn to face him. They’d been married only a couple weeks before he’d accepted this job on the Kent coast; a long-term job as horse trainer and breeder to a farm struggling to return to their pre-war glory.

A permanent job, where they were close enough to the sea he could smell it on her skin, the scent of the water and wind clinging to her from their walk the night before.

Perhaps she hadn’t acclimated as well to their marriage bed as her passionate cries had suggested? Hadn’t grown accustomed to _him_. She seemed to love him, or at least care for him, and she wanted him—shattered in his arms, to his touch every night and every morning. Had it all been an act?

No.

He knew her better than that. Even if John had no idea why she’d want a man like him. A man with scars on his heart and soul, and the screams of the dead and dying in his ears, and blood on his hands and staining his very being. A man who never stayed at one job or in one city long enough to make more than casual acquaintances. A man who couldn’t reconcile his past with the bright future Rose promised.

He believed she loved him.

And he needed her. John needed her like the air he breathed. He needed her smile and her laugh and her warm body next to his. Needed her kiss and her touch and her love. It cast light on all the blackened places within him.

He’d keep her with him, keep her for himself. _His_. It was selfish and arrogant but he didn’t care. The thought of losing her terrified him straight through. Terrified him and made him pull her closer. Not just physically, not just emotionally, in every possible way.

All of her.  
Rose was his. 

John didn’t remove his hand from her breast, fingers lightly stroking the hard nipple. Though his heart thundered, he waited for her to relax beneath his touch. He didn’t want to frighten her, but he did want her. He’d always wanted her. Had done even before their marriage when they’d first met late at night on the London street corner. Or when she smiled so shyly yet so brilliantly at him during their small wedding ceremony.

Rose was so young, though well past marriageable age. Still, she was his choice and he never regretted it. _She was his._ And she’d seemed to accept that, accept his affection and his passions. Accept him.

But then he heard her swallow, clear her throat, offer a breathy chuckle. “All the way at the main house, eh? No,” she said.

Then she did turn in his arms. Turned in his arms, combed her hands through his hair, as she knew he liked, until they settled at the base of his neck, blunt fingernails scraping along the back of his neck, and pulled him closer. She watched him intently for a long beat, brandy colored eyes boring into his as if searching for something.

John opened to her. All he was, he freely gave to her.

Rose gave him a slight smile, her tongue running along her lower lip and she hooked a leg over his hip and nuzzled the crook of his neck. “Wouldn’t want them to hear us.”

John danced his fingers down her belly to her wetness. His breath caught when he felt how wet she already was. For him. Always for him. Only for him. He easily slipped into her, her body so ready and accepting of his. Rose gasped, a short sound at the back of her throat as he thrust into her, head tossed back, nails digging into his back.

That slight pain spurred him on and he withdrew just enough to slam back into her. He caught her cry with him mouth, kissed her hard as she shuddered in his arms. John tossed the chemise aside, the barrier between his touch and her skin, uncaring where it fell.

Mouth greedy on her skin, desperate to rememorize the taste of her even as they moved together slowly now, all soft kisses and leisurely touches. When John rolled them and hovered over her, Rose gasped, whimpered.

“Mine,” he said against her skin, her mouth. “You’re mine, Rose.”

He thrust deeper, harder, faster, caught her moans and cries with his mouth, felt her feet press against his legs, move higher to lock around his waist and knew she was close. Her short nails scraped down his back, dug into his arse even as she met his every thrust.

One hand tangled in his hair and pulled his forehead to hers.

John pulled back, startled at the faint (love-hope-acceptance-bond-mate-) _something_ he felt arc between them and stared into Rose’s eyes. Her gaze was shadowed in the pre-dawn light but he knew it held shock-yearning-craving.

“What?” he managed.

A thousand questions raced through his mind, but he bit them off. This touch was important; he felt it clear through every bit of him but didn’t know why. _(Bonded, my Rose. I can feel you around me, touching my soul.)_

Felt her retreat.

“No.”

Never that. Never from him, not from him. She was his, his wife, his lover. His everything. He would not— _could not_ —lose her. Not to anything or anyone or ever.

It would destroy him.

Frantic, John pulled her closer, suddenly desperate to feel what she wanted, what she sought. Knew it was important, knew it was a…strange-extraordinary-inexplicable-familiar touch. Strained for it, toward it, but didn’t know what or where or how or—

_There._

It was a faint soft light that called to him and had him straining for more. Closer. All. It circled and called and enveloped and caressed and John felt it hit him in the gut and his heart and his very soul.

Rose whimpered, cried out, _yes_ , and John moved his hand to her center, watching her as she hovered on the precipice. Flicked his long fingers against her. Then her teeth sank into his shoulder as she climaxed, beautiful and wild and _his_. John moved faster, Rose’s fingers playing over his spine. Holding him close.

His own climax consumed him, shuddered through him in a burst of reddish gold-light and sound and fire.

He kept his gaze on hers.

Breathing heavily, his heart galloping as wildly as any horse he’d ever ridden, John rolled to the side just as the first rays of sunlight peeked through the window. Little after bursts of red-gold colored his vision and a sense of consuming wholeness embraced him as surely as Rose’s arms held him close.

Slowly, his senses coming back to him, John realized the red-gold was the sunlight streaming in on his first day as horse trainer on Broad Oak Manor. ( _Maybe not just sunlight_ , a little voice told him with more authority than little voices normally had. _Maybe that’s all Rose._ )

John gathered Rose against him. Held her close-tight-intimate-familiar. Together. She rested her head on his chest, her hand automatically resting on the opposite side. Her fingers curled into his skin, nails digging into his chest for a beat, before she moved her hand down, over his stomach.

She cleared her throat and he wondered what was wrong. Usually Rose curled into his side, mouth on his as they both calmed from their love making, unwilling to leave the other’s touch, let go of the intimacy of their embrace.

This morning, she lay awkwardly in his arms, though she made no move to leave.

Was it the new house? The cottage wasn’t very big, and they needed to share with Jack and Rose’s maid, but he thought that was what she wanted. Their own house.

Settled.  
Grounded.  
No more traveling, no more moving from place to place.  
Security and refuge and to stay in this one place.  
Theirs to call home.

A mantel they could buy memorabilia for, walls for photos. Maybe he’d take up drawing again, and sculpting. He’d given it up when he married Rose, too frivolous, the income too unsteady to support a wife. The family they wanted.

Even as his eyes closed and he dozed, John smiled. He’d show her he could stay at a single job. Stay in one place for longer than a visit. Stay and settle down.

That he could provide for her. That he could take care of her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Monsters, aliens, benevolent despots, running for their lived—easy! But how are Rose and Martha going to cope when their lovers have changed so drastically? (Possessive!Doctor)

**Day 1:**  
Rose stood beside Martha. She tried not to fiddle with her wedding ring, tried not to bring attention to the clearly expensive band and the jewel embedded in it. Rose had had to cover her bonding pendant before they left the house, rummaging through the bag the TARDIS had so helpfully provided for an appropriately high-collared dress to wear.

She’d flatly refused to take off the pendant.

But she had no idea what she’d say to John when, or if, he realized what the pendant was. Maybe not _what_ it was but most definitely that they shouldn’t have been able to afford it. At least she assumed they couldn’t afford it. He and Jack were working on a farm; not exactly the sort to be able to buy a silver (like) filigree necklace with a very expensive jewel embedded within.

Maybe he wouldn’t notice. He hadn’t last night as he’d made love to her or this morning as he’d woken her with his hands and mouth. In fact, his fingers had skimmed around the pendant as if he knew it was there but forbidden to touch.

And he did remember her, a fear Rose hadn’t realized she’d harbored until he’d led her upstairs last night and kissed her, telling her how much he wanted her, how much he loved her. Apparently by _residual awareness_ , the Doctor had really meant _I will most certainly remember you, Rose Tyler, how could you_ ever _think otherwise?_

“It’s only been hours,” she muttered to Martha, “and I have a headache.”

“And it’s only day one,” Martha said with a heavy sigh.

“What if John asks about the pendant?” Rose asked.

Her fingers brushed the base of her throat through the heavy cotton of her ‘I’m a proper lady’ heavy wool dress. Honestly, she had no real hope Martha had any more answers than she did, but Rose had to ask. Or at least voice her concerns. Okay, yes, fine, they were fears.

They were fears and she admitted that. Fear that she and Martha wouldn’t be enough. Or that if the hunters found them any number of things could go wrong in getting John and Jack back to their regular Doctor and Jack selves.

“Or the rings,” Rose added, smoothing her thumb over the band. “If someone comments on the rings and their worth or expense or—”

“Say they’re an heirloom from the—from _John’s_ grandmother or something,” Martha suggested, still looking out over their new home.

Broad Oak Manor was run down, ancient, and situated a kilometer or so inland along The White Cliffs of Dover. Rose had no idea what town or village they were near, only that the scent of the sea sharpened the air. And she and Martha were trapped here for 90 more days.

Did the Doctor go by literal days or 3 months in general? Earth months? So far as she knew, he’d always used Earth terms when discussing measures of time with her. But in his rush, in his fear, had he meant Gallifreyan? How long was a Gallifreyan month?

There hadn’t been time to ask him and she’d had a hundred other questions she’d tried to voice. Maybe it was only 89 more days.

Maybe she was going to drive herself barmy and needed to stop.

She stepped forward, away from the relative safety-comfort-protection of the medium-sized cottage they’d been directed to the previous night. Away from the anonymity-concealment-insignificance-obscurity of their arrival. Beside her, Martha wrapped a long coat tighter around her and shoved her gloveless hands in her pockets.

“I’m sorry you’re stuck here,” Rose said quietly. “I know it’s not exactly what you had in mind when you agreed to travel with the Doctor.”

“You’re stuck here, too,” Martha reminded her with a shrug.

“In sickness and in health, running for our lives and saving each other.” Rose shrugged. “I’d do anything to protect the Doctor and Jack. Even this.”

“I would, too,” Martha said quietly and Rose wondered just how deep her friend’s feelings for Jack ran.

No, it was more than that. Even with Martha’s feelings for Jack, the four of them didn’t use the word family lightly. They meant it. And this was what one did for family.

Protect them.

“Not letting anything happen to them. Either of them. Or,” Martha added with a significant glance at Rose, “you. Besides, I don’t mind. At least I know the TARDIS is here and if worse comes to worse and those hunters find us, we can hide in Her. Nothing can break in, right?”

“He told me the assembled hoards of Genghis Khan couldn’t break down those doors. And,” Rose added as her mind raced over possibilities, each worse than the next, “I know he has a shield—can extend it for a few meters around, too.”

Martha looked over at her skeptically. “And do you know how to do that?”

Rose shook her head.

“Right. Soon as he’s done being John Smith, and Jack’s back to being my Jack,” Martha said with an annoyed determination in her voice, “we’re learning. The Doctor being the only one who knows these things is rubbish when he’s not the Doctor!”

Rose flinched but couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped. No, she didn’t like the Doctor as John. It made her feel off, like it wasn’t really her husband but a stranger in her bed. Making love to her. Looking at her like the Doctor did, as if she was the only other person in his universe. Touching her, the way he framed her face with his hands, the way he kissed her, the way he tasted.

But not quite. Like there was that one component missing, the one thing that made the Doctor the Doctor that John didn’t quite have.

It bruised her heart to think about it and wounded her soul and Rose didn’t know what to do. What to say or how to respond or how to move the ice in her veins and freezing her limbs and coating her heart.

When he’d woken her first thing this morning, she had kissed him back and arched against him and shuddered in orgasm at her release. She wanted him—that was never in question. Felt their bond—beautiful and tangible and real and connecting them like nothing else in the universe had a right to.

A reminder and promise and commitment and connection.

More than that, though, Rose realized as she and Martha walked slowly along the dirt path from their cottage to the corrals. It wasn’t just the bond, though Rose couldn’t remember the last time they’d made love without that connection burning with brilliant-consuming-forever-always life.

The faintness of it worried her. But more, her orgasm had felt…empty. No, not _empty_ , not really that. She hadn’t a word for what she felt. Not the same. Not like when she made love with the Doctor. Not like normal.

Her climax consumed her as she came hard against his touch, curled her limbs around John and gasped as molten pleasure flooded her veins and blanked her mind and yes, sparked their bond to life.

Maybe because their bond wasn’t as strong. Or because John wasn’t the Doctor, he was, well, John.

Physically, it was intensely perfect.  
Emotionally, she felt distant and alone and empty.  
Because the Doctor wasn’t really there and Rose didn’t know what to do or feel or how to react.

John had seemed satisfied. All smugly possessive and pleased—more than that, he’d known exactly how to touch her to make her orgasm spiral out of control. And when he kissed her before he’d left, his hands had been gentle on her face, mouth hard and firm and knowing on hers.

In that, in all that, he reminded her of the Doctor, and Rose had almost relaxed around him. But then he’d pulled her to him, as the Doctor always had, and she’d heard only one heart beat a strange staccato against her ear and had been enveloped by a human heat from him and Rose stiffened.

Pulled back.

“You know,” Rose said quietly, desperate to stop her thoughts. They walked along the rolling land, nothing but sky and green and more of the same around them. “When I was growing up I wanted to live on a farm.”

“Really?” Martha asked, surprise coloring her tone.

Rose looked at her with a nod, though her friend continued to look at the scenery. Green and sky nothing but for miles and miles.

“Why?” Martha wondered and it took Rose a moment to remember their conversation.

“Grew up on an estate,” Rose said with a shrug. “Dropped out of school to move in with a complete tosser, a musician who took my money and beat me. _Tried_ to beat me.” Another shrug—that life and that loser of a man were in the past and had no hold over her.

“Didn’t get my A-Levels, nothing. Farms were this magical place with open land and fresh air and…”

“Horse manure?” Martha asked, nose crinkled.

Rose laughed with her, but it was short lived. Choked-burned-tightened through her. “I never thought I’d be stuck on one in whatever hell year we’re stuck. Course, I never thought a lot of things.”

“At least we’re in England,” Martha said with a spark of enthusiasm, neatly interrupting Rose’s maudlin and circular thoughts. “And we have the TARDIS. Could be worse. I don’t speak any other languages, except Latin. I rely on the TARDIS to translate.”

“Yeah,” Rose agreed and tried not to think of worse.

Of white walls and take me back and impossible first jumps.

“Why is She powered down?”

“Do you remember a couple years ago,” Rose began, stopped, shrugged, and added, “relative time that is. Big rock spaceship in the sky? A third of humans on the ledge?” Martha nodded and Rose swallowed heavily, those days so very vivid in her memories. “That’s when the Doctor regenerated. He was sick, lying in my mum’s flat, unconscious.”

Rose sucked in a deep breath, full of the vast countryside and open water and horses. Lots and lots of horses.

There’d been nothing she could do. _Help me_ and _Rose Tyler, fat lot of good you were, you gave up on me!_ and this time she was most certainly not.

Rose was _not_ giving up on the Doctor even if he had the same face but an entirely different personality. Or at least a marginally different personality—she couldn’t be certain yet. Even if he was human and didn’t remember all the wonderful things they’d seen and done.

It was just like a regeneration. Maybe not _just_ like, but the analogy was close enough. And she vowed to treat it as such.

He was her lover, her husband, her Doctor. She’d protect him from anything. Everything. Rose didn’t know if she could protect her heart, but here and now, on Day 1, all that mattered was keeping him and Jack safe.

“He’s connected to the TARDIS,” Rose finished, unable to talk more about that time. Her paralyzing fear for him. Her love and heartbreak and grief and panic—he’d died, left her, was alive and wanted her.

Yes. Just like a regeneration. An amnesic regeneration.

“I suppose,” Martha said as they turned the corner of the manor house to where the corral sat. “It could be worse,” Martha repeated and they both laughed.

She and Martha had sat around their cottage for several hours, trying to occupy themselves with lists of ways to stay low and stay safe and keep their men safe. Then settled on making lunch.

With no food.  
And no TARDIS.  
And no microwave.  
It was worse than 1969 and Rose suddenly felt immensely grateful to the TARDIS for all She provided and ashamed that her biggest gripe was that she had no microwave to heat up her food. Or a Tesco’s to run out to buy milk. How pathetically selfish and self-centered was she?

Martha had volunteered to go to the main house for luncheon supplies while Rose had dug out pots and pans and scoured the icebox for something to eat. And tried not to break down. Annoyed with herself, she then spent the remaining time between Martha leaving and returning berating herself for stupid weaknesses and losing it over just another adventure.

Rose supposed they should’ve stocked up on food before exiting the TARDIS, but that had been the least of her worries as they’d dragged the unconscious Doctor and Jack out of the doors and onto the cold ground. A cold ground just as foreign to them as Silous or Midnight or Weeping Woman.

Now, she and Martha slowed their pace as they neared the corral where the Doctor and Jack, now working as horse trainers and breeders, enthusiastically helped the owner, Rupert Fitzpatrick, revitalize his family’s fortune.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Harkness.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose didn’t really want to panic. It was a stupid thing to panic over, anyway. Because when she made her vows, when she bonded with the Doctor, when she first made love to the being who stole her heart, she’d already promised him she’d do whatever it took to keep him safe. (Possessive!Doctor)

John didn’t whistle. Not that he was really the whistling type, but today he wanted to be; the first day of their new adventure and a nice cottage just like Rose always wanted. And a perfect, passionate way to wake up, with Rose moaning his name as she broke apart in his arms.

No, he didn’t whistle. But for the first time in…well, a while, he wanted to.

Even if he easily envisioned waking like that with Rose every morning. Or cupping her round belly, heavy with their babe. Or owning their own small horse farm where he taught their children horses and nature and how to care for the land.

With Rose by his side.

He didn’t like this, this _leaving_ her. But having her by his side as he worked with Broad Oak’s horses hadn’t been feasible. He’d tried to figure a way and could. Still, he had high hope for figuring it out a way in their future. This _was_ their first separation since they’d met (since she’d come back to him and where had that thought-memory-vision come from?) and John absolutely did not like it.

He wanted her by his side always, hand in his hand. Or at least in reaching distance. He might, _might_ , be all right with her in visual range. Maybe. Eventually. This distance, her in the cottage and him in the paddock, made his fingers itch to feel hers against his and his legs beg for to run for her.

Jaw clenched, John controlled himself—stayed his feet which wanted to run and find her, his eyes that wanted to seek her out, his fingers that wanted to feel her skin beneath him. His control used to be so good before he’d met Rose. Now, well, now not so much.

This job wasn’t permanent. Soon they’d have their own place.

Rose hadn’t said whether or not she’d want their own farm, but she’d been willing enough to move from London where the economy was still suffering from The Great Slump, as the papers were calling it, to Kent where things were, if not exactly booming, then certainly headed that way. And John vowed to work toward that, toward their own land and own house.

With her.

He pressed his lips together to flatten a small smile as he walked the stud around the paddock, letting the strong animal get to know him. He didn’t mind people knowing how much he loved Rose; he wasn’t one of those men who ignored his wife when others were nearby to appear manlier on the eyes of society or some such nonsense.

He simply didn’t like others seeing the private affection between the two of them.

John kept that for them; the touches and glances and whispered words as they fell from Rose’s lips. Her smile, that way she looked only at him, the passion when they were alone. He didn’t like to share, never had. And he’d never share Rose. If he could, John wanted to lock her away, keep her safe.

Keep her his. Only his. Always his.

A flash of possessiveness tightened through him. Rose was his. Not that she’d ever given any indication otherwise, not from the first. But he heard a beat within him like an echo of his heartbeat.

Keep her safe.  
Keep her near.  
Keep her with him.  
Always with him.

Don’t let go.  
Don’t let her go.  
If he did, she’d…disappear. Disappear? No, leave. Leave him. If he let go, she’d leave him, disappear from his life and it’d destroy him. So he held tight. Tighter.

John released a breath, took another, tried to ease the tightness banding round his chest and telling him to run. Run to Rose and make sure she was safe. But he didn’t. Of course she was safe. And though he didn’t know where that beat, that insistent beat that warned him of danger came from, John listened to it.

Listened and knew, knew it in his bones, that he had to keep Rose safe. With him. At his side. John knew what kind of man he’d been without her in his life. He didn’t want to go back to being that man. Lost and adrift and angry and broken. So broken.

“You all right?” Jack asked.

Shaking his head to clear it, John looked to where Jack stood, far closer than he’d expected. “Yeah. Fine.”

John flashed a quick grin and focused again on the horse, Phellen, and wondered if Jack knew the lengths he’d go to keep Rose with him. If Jack knew the depth and complexity of his love for her.

Not that Jack would comment; he wasn’t one to make ribald remarks no matter the situation. Still, what John and Rose did was their own private matter. He really would have to speak with her about keeping quiet, however. John loved hearing her scream his name in passion or watch her fall apart as she climaxed from his fingers, his mouth, his body and his alone. But her passion, her orgasms, her pleasure were for him.

Only him.

John looked away from Phellen for a heartbeat and imagined he and Rose walking through the wood just off the grounds. Of making love to her in the open where they could get caught if she made so much as a sound. The thrill of arousal, of dominance, of control at that thought shot through him hard and fast until John saw only that, only her, only them.

Taking her as her cries mingled with nature and she wrapped around him, teeth sinking into his skin as her own mark.

His hands marking her hips as his; his mouth branding her skin. Jaw clenched, John forced those arousing images away. The fantasy of Rose laid out for him had him hard and he needed to concentrate on his work. Not on making love to his wife.

He’d do that later. Until she couldn’t move, until her body had grown limp from pleasure and her skin too sensitive and yet still she wanted him. _Begged him._

Breathing deeply, he willed his body under control. Before Rose, he had far more control, but frankly, wouldn’t change a minute of their time together.

Phallen eyed him more like a tasty treat than alpha. John eyed Phellen right back until the horse snickered and tossed his head. John took another deep breath of the cold winter’s day with a crisp breeze off The Channel. This was only the beginning.

The beginning of their new life. _What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from._ Eliot’s quote ran through his mind, the ending of his old, solitary life. And the start of a new life with Rose.

Life with Rose, a life she’d always wanted. The family they’d spoken of.

Just them.

****  
Rose looked over at the beautiful woman walking down the path. Tall, redhead, and rubenesque with a pale complexion and startlingly green eyes, she wore loose fitting trousers with a confidence that came from the assurance of wealth.

Rose froze.

In the next five seconds a dozen things raced through her mind, but Rose did not flinch. She didn’t even really breathe. Emotions swirled through her heart and so many thoughts leaped over each other in her mind that all she could really think of was _what the hell?_

The woman stared expectantly at her, green gaze locked on Rose, smiling as she closed the distance between them, one confident step at a time. Rose glanced to her left at Martha; her friend looked wide-eyed and stunned, but shook her head— _not me_ she mouthed. No, this woman had not spoken to Martha.

_Mrs. Harkness._

Rose didn’t miss the flash of hurt over her friend’s face, nestled deep in her eyes.

In the next second, as the woman moved steadily closer, Rose took a deep breath, automatically reached for her bond with the Doctor or the soothing hum of the TARIDS. Only a faint brush of awareness from the Doctor, John (she really had to get used to that), but it flash-burned through her mind with all the encompassing love-need-mine she normally felt from the Doctor.

It almost made her smile. It almost eased her tension. It almost felt normal.

Great. Perfect. The TARDIS hadn’t enough power to get things straight. What else hadn’t She had the energy to psychically manipulate? To influence to their needs? Rose couldn’t blame Her; She’d done all She could considering the situation.

Except now these people thought she was _Jack’s_ wife. John certainly hadn’t—Jack either or Rose had a feeling last night would’ve turned out a whole lot differently than it had. She knew she married John; he’d called her his wife at least once, hadn’t he?

_Hadn’t he?_

No.

No, Rose didn’t think he had. Rose glanced at her ring, still nestled on her finger and tried to remember if the Doctor’s ring still graced John’s hand. Had it?

In the third second, Rose allowed herself to panic.

A band tightened around her lungs. Her mouth went dry, her mind raced so fast, tumbling and falling and jumping that she couldn’t remember if she simply _thought_ it had, _wished_ it had, or if it _really_ had. Had it been there last night? Neither of them had taken it off before they’d left the TARDIS. Had he done so on their short walk from TARDIS to manor house?

Had he this morning? Was he wearing the ring when they’d made love? Was he when he’d left the house?

Rose felt Martha’s hand brush quickly across her shoulder in a comforting touch of camaraderie and breathed deeply. Oh God, she was being stupid. There was no use panicking over a ring. She had to protect the Doctor and Jack and here she was, worrying over a ring.

Rose sucked in another deep breath.

Damn it. She was stronger than this. She survived more terrifying things than her lover changing before her.

She was Rose Tyler.  
She saved the universe and individual planets and people on a fairly regular basis.   
She learned about quantum physics and temporal physics and plain ol’ general physics.  
She led the team to build the dimension cannon. Sure, those scientists were thrilled to have unlimited money and the most complicated (some even said fun) project to work on in their lives, but she orchestrated the project and supervised it.  
She did _not_ breakdown over a stupid misunderstanding that was easily fixed.

Rose needed to get a damn grip, suck it up, and deal.

In that final second as the woman reached her and Martha, Rose curled her left fingers into a fist. Slowly, she uncurled her fingers. No. She was not going to hide her ring. Smile firmly plastered in place, she cleared her throat and calmly met the eyes of the woman who’d spoken.

“Hello!” Rose said brightly. Too high, too false, too obviously fake to be anything but. She cleared her throat again, smelled the openness of the farm, the deeper scent of horses, and the rightness of the air that told her this was her Earth.

The small picnic basket she’d managed to find to carry their food suddenly felt leaden in her hands.

“We haven’t been introduced,” the woman said as she sauntered the remaining meter or so separating them. Her hips swayed rather enticingly, Rose had to admit, and wondered if that was a practiced move or a natural one. “Amélie Fitzpatrick.”

Amélie held out her hand and Rose automatically took it. The handshake was firm and confident and Amélie’s gaze never wavered.

“Rose Harkness.” Rose said evenly, somewhat amazed she’d managed not to choke on the word though the syllables scraped along her throat. She was so having a word with the TARDIS once this was over.

And then she wondered, with a sinking suspicion, who Jack was in all this. Neither she nor Martha had had the chance to do more than stumble from bed with the sun barely risen, offer John and Jack the leftover bread and sausage the staff had graciously given them for breakfast, and watch the pair of them leave for their first day of work.

It never occurred to Rose to ask what Jack’s role in their little melodrama was.

“Do you mind if I walk with you?” Amélie asked in the smooth cadence of someone educated in a boarding school, or finishing school, or some school far, far from the estates Rose had grown up on.

Rose nodded and turned back for the corrals. “Martha and I,” she said deliberately in case Amélie had any intention of ignoring Martha. Which she seemed to. “Were just bringing John and Jack lunch,” Rose said in as a normal tone as her dry mouth allowed.

Beside her, Martha walked far more stiffly than she had before Amélie joined them. She also didn’t look at the other woman, barely glanced at Rose.

Rose had the terrible feeling that Amélie was going to be worse than anything they’d seen even in 1969. She and Martha had spent some time this morning amusing themselves over Jack’s change in accent and trying to guess what time period they’d landed in based on their clothes. Their best guess was sometime in the 1930s; definitely pre-World War II.

Racism was as alive and well now, as it was in 1969. And, Rose remembered with a sinking churning in her stomach, so was classism. Even more so than what she’d experienced growing up or working at Henrik’s.

Brilliant.

“We neglected to bring much with us, and are grateful to your kitchens for lunch,” Rose continued smoothly. “Especially considering the lateness of our arrival last night.”

They were here for a reason and that reason was to protect the Doctor and Jack. Rose could speak with anyone about anything at any time of the day or night _and like it_ to ensure their safety.

She hadn’t asked Martha what happened when her friend had left to get supplies from the main house and now realized how stupid that was. She had volunteered, but now Rose knew, though Martha hadn’t said a word, that they’d assumed Martha was her servant.

Bloody brilliant.

Well, she was not going to play into that. She and Martha would do everything to keep the Doctor and Jack safe; there was no question about that. But these people could think what they wanted; Rose refused to even pretend to treat Martha as anything less than her friend and equal.

She swallowed against a lump of emotion as they came into view of the Doctor and Jack.

John. Couldn’t slip up. What would he do if she did? What would she say? What would it matter? Would he remember what the name meant to him? Could she even train herself to use John when they were intimate? When they were strolling along the grounds?

Could her brain shut off for 2 bloody seconds?

“Ah yes, Roberts goes into town every couple of days. Next time, you can send your…Martha was it?” Amélie asked with barely a glance at Martha. Rose clenched her jaw against the deliberate insult. “To tag along.”

 _Tag along_ sounded like another insult, as if this Roberts was going to make Martha walk beside the car or ride ignobly in the back of the bus or some such.

“We’ll take the opportunity to enjoy tea together,” Amélie added with an appraising look Rose didn’t have the energy to sort out. She didn’t really know what her backstory was, but knew, from the quality of their clothing, it at least looked as if they came from money.

“Sure,” Rose said evenly, watching the other woman carefully. “I’d like that.”

She knew that Amélie wanted tea with just the two of them. Martha wasn’t accepted here. Back straighter, jaw clenched, she looked calmly at Amélie who watched her with a subtly raised eyebrow. Assessing then. Rose didn’t know if she wanted to have tea with Amélie, but she sure as hell knew she wasn’t sending Martha to do the shopping alone or to _tag along_.

Martha was most definitely not her underling. Bloody society.

“I’d love to have tea,” Rose said in a brighter tone as she desperately tried to ignore _John_ and Jack and the casual dismissal of Martha and the fact a very nasty headache was brewing behind her eyes. “However, I think I’ll accompany Martha to town this week. I’d love to look around, get to know the area. Help Martha carry back the shopping.”

She wondered what town they were near but didn’t dare ask since she was likely already supposed to know. Jack had said something last night about the long walk from the train station, so Rose knew that at least the backstory they’d been given seemed sound.

Even as she said the words, every fiber of her being beat to one tune: _Keep the Doctor safe. Keep the Doctor safe. Keep your lover safe. Keep him and Jack safe._ They needed to be here, at least they couldn’t leave until the TARDIS was functional and that meant the Doctor needed to be back to his Time Lord self and _that_ wasn’t happening until the hunters died.

Rose slowly breathed in. She could do that. She could pretend anything these people wanted her to pretend if it meant keeping her family safe.

Amélie nodded, but she had a funny look on her face. Rose had visions of people staring at her and Martha as they walked around in 1969; of Cline, that racist building manager; of how she and Martha had stuck together even before the firm bond of friendship had cemented.

Screw that. She thought so then, and desperately wanted to do so now. _Keep the Doctor safe. Keep the Doctor and Jack safe._

Rose glanced at Martha. She’d speak with her the second they were alone. Martha understood, Rose knew it without needing to be told. Knew that Martha would do anything to keep the Doctor and Jack safe. Even play their maid.

The thought tasted sour and acrid. Rose desperately wanted to say that she wasn’t about to let her fears over the hunters finding them reduce her to a puddle of simpering blindness, thoughtlessly following so-called societal norms.

That it didn’t matter if she could or couldn’t change attitudes on Broad Oak Manor. That Rose Tyler did not and was not about to compromise her principles or her friend just to fit in.

_Protect the Doctor. Keep him safe._

It beat like a mantra through her and Rose nodded to Amélie. When she agreed to tea, the words tasted like bitter ash.

Then she looked to Martha, whom Amélie had quite thoroughly ignored, and smiled. They’d get through this together. And then maybe another spa…no maybe not. Maybe a nice visit to Sarah Jane. Or gardens. Yes, maybe a lovely stroll around non-carnivorous gardens.

Ohh, even better, a relaxing day at that pizza planet they all loved. Or maybe they’d just stay in the TARDIS for a couple days and go nowhere. Just for a couple days.

And they’d have to call Sarah—make sure she knew they were safe. And when. Maybe she could look up some historical information on the area—forewarn them in case they needed to know something. And find out if her computer, Mr. Smith, had discovered anything about stars disappearing or tears/cracks in the fabric of the universe.

Mr. Smith had discovered nothing yet, but with their luck, with the Doctor and Jack out of commission, this was the _exact_ time the computer would figure it all out and predict the end of the world.

Plus, they’d need to make sure Sarah was aware of what could happen, depending on how good those hunters’ noses were at tracking. The Doctor’s scent had to be overlapping the entire galaxy by now.

What if he had it wrong? What if those hunters had picked up an old scent? They’d gone to Sarah’s enough recently to put her in danger. Or her mum’s old flat—how long did a Time Lord’s scent linger? How strong were those hunters’ senses?

How did they end up in situations like this? Honestly…this was taking jeopardy friendly to an entirely new level.

A tall, burly man with arms the size of her waist leaned against the railing, watching the Doctor (John-John-John) and Jack work a pair of horses. Rose knew nothing about horses other than the obvious. Didn’t the queen enjoy horse racing? Were these horses even for racing? Was there a difference?

What did Jack know about them? Rose would’ve bet money the Doctor had some experience with them, or at least enough knowledge about horses to make do. When the TARDIS changed Jack, had She put information on training and breeding horses into his head?

Rose took another deep breath. She needed a drink and a hot compress for her pounding head. Or possibly just a drink. She glanced sideways at Martha, but her friend was studiously looking at the horses and seeming to ignore everyone else. The two of them would need to decide on a better plan than the slipshod one they currently had.

And a couple backup plans. Just in case.

The man who leaned against the corral railing seemed to know his stuff as he watched John and Jack circled a horse around the paddock—Rupert Fitzpatrick then. Their employer.

Amélie Fitzpatrick was younger than her husband, but Rose couldn’t decide if it was a love match or a political one. Or even a merging of horse farms one. She didn’t know enough about their hosts (employers?) to guess.

What they needed was more information; their morning of sitting around the cottage, drinking tea, at a total loss of what to do hadn’t been the most auspicious of starts.

“I must say, your brother-in-law is rather handsome,” Amélie commented just softly enough so Rose knew her husband hadn’t overheard. Rose wondered if Rupert would’ve cared.

Rose was about to comment, not that she had any freaking idea what to say other than “Yes”, when Martha’s hand squeezed tightly on her wrist. There and gone before anyone could see the move.

Oh good Lord, who did Amélie mean? _John_ or _Jack_?

“I’m so having words with the TARDIS when we get back,” Rose muttered to Martha.

Martha snickered then immediately schooled her face. She still looked pale and rigid, and kept her gaze straight ahead. 

Rose cleared her throat. “Yes,” she said. The word caught and she swallowed hard and tried for another smile. Her face was going to freeze in a caricature of happiness if she kept this up.

“Jack is very handsome.”

“Jack?” Amélie said with a frown.

Oh, God, the other woman had so been checking out John. Amélie had been eyeing up Rose’s husband!

Rose narrowed her eyes; she did not like that one damn bit. Considering the other woman, Rose wondered how Amélie already knew which man was which. She must’ve been by the paddock before greeting, or intercepting, she and Martha.

But why? For what purpose?

“Yup!” Rose purposefully popped her _p_ and grinned knowingly as she waved vaguely in the direction of the men.

This was the hunter’s fault and no one else’s. Except maybe those scientists on Silous.

Forcing her voice to sound calmer than she felt, Rose deliberately unclenched her jaw and relaxed her shoulders. She took in a slow, deep breath and imagined all her tension leaving her with the exhale. _Protect the Doctor. Protect the Doctor._

“Yes.” Rose said simply. “Jack.” She purposefully nodded at Jack, in case Amélie was under an even more mistaken impression that the Doctor’s name was Jack.

“I thought you and _Jack_ were married,” Amélie said, clearly puzzled.

“Nope!” Rose laughed and felt a measure of relief with that laugh.

All this might be funny in 3 months’ time when they were back on the TARDIS and everyone who currently wasn’t themselves were back to being themselves.

Right now? Not so much.

But Rose laughed anyway because this really was all a misunderstanding and this, at least, she could correct. 

“ _John_ and I are married.” She had no idea how long they’d been married, but that didn’t matter. “Hasn’t been that long. Jack was, of course, his best man.”

“My apologies,” Amélie said with a short laugh that Rose couldn’t decipher. “I’m afraid we were all under the impression you and Jack were married.”

Rose wanted to ask where she’d got that impression, but didn’t want to rock the psychic boat. If the TARDIS hadn’t enough power to sort it out, She might not have had enough power to keep up the pretense. And they desperately needed that pretense kept up.

“But,” Amélie was saying in a lighter tone that still had a hint of something beneath that Rose couldn’t quite figure out. “I suppose it’s a simple mistake to make among brothers.”

Brothers? Oh, God, how stupid was she?

Beside her, Martha let out a relieved chuckle that sounded more like a snickering sigh of reprieve than anything. Rose had been so worried over everything else, so obsessed with the little things, that she hadn’t made the easiest, simplest connection.

John and Jack Harkness. Brothers. _**Duh**_.

She was saved from further comment, and self-recriminations, when Rupert Fitzpatrick turned from the fence. “Ah, Amélie,” he said in a gruff, almost indifferent, tone. “Is this Mrs. Harkness?”

Rose sighed and smiled. “Please call me Rose.”

 _Please, please,_ please, _call me Rose_.

“The Doctor is so going to hear about this once our 89 days are up,” Rose mumbled to Martha as Amélie sauntered up to her husband. “And I’m going to make sure Jack knows as well so he can tease the Doctor mercilessly.”

Martha laughed again. “Small retribution,” she whispered back.

“And this is Martha Jones,” Rose added purposely.

“Pleasure,” Rupert said in the same indifferent tone he’d used with his wife. “I have to say, your husband knows his horses.”

Rose tried not to sigh.

****  
John watched Rose interact with Fitzpatrick. He’d been so focused on the horses he and Jack were getting to know that he hadn’t realized how fast the morning had passed. And he hadn’t seen Rose walk toward the corrals so much as he suddenly knew she was there.

That pulsing warmth of red-gold that spread through him. Caressing his mind as if her fingers caressed his body.

He was filled with a sudden urge to run across the ground and sweep her into his arms, twirl her around. Hear her laughter wash over him. Take her hand in his and run, just _run_ until they were breathless then kiss her until she was breathless for another reason.

He was already half-hard for her, for the taste of her to explode along his tongue, the scent of her to wrap around his senses, the feel of her beneath his fingers as he explored and loved and gave. Would there ever be a time when he didn’t want her? Couldn’t imagine there would be.

When he looked over, John saw her talking with a beautiful redhead, Martha silent by their side. John didn’t know how they were going to afford keeping Martha on, but he hadn’t been able to say no to Rose when she’d asked if her childhood friend and maid could travel with them from London to Kent.

Really, he should’ve found Martha employment in the village instead. This was a prosperous area; one of the families probably needed a maid.

Martha’d be close enough to Broad Oak and Rose, but self-sufficient so he didn’t have to worry over her wages. Still, at the moment it wasn’t a problem and when he and Rose had children, at least they’d already have Martha to help out.

Rose smiled up at Fitzpatrick with that bright-wide grin that transformed her features entirely. Her laughter rang across the grounds quickly followed by Fitzpatrick’s lower one. John growled, low and dangerous in the back of his throat.

A flash of anger-resentment-possession shot through John as he watched his wife laugh and flirt with Fitzpatrick.

He took an automatic step forward with one thing in mind— _get Rose away from Fitzpatrick_. With some difficulty, John unclenched his jaw, blanked his features, and pressed his lips together. He took several deep breaths, eyes boring into Rose, and finally managed to rein in his blind possessiveness of his wife. 

But he would speak with Rose about keeping her distance from Fitzpatrick. And though John knew Rose came from a well-to-do family, and becoming friends with Mrs. Fitzpatrick was perfectly acceptable, there were boundaries he’d insist she’d keep with Rupert.

Rose was his.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being the one left waiting, the one left behind, is the hardest thing imaginable. Rose and Martha know this all too well. (Possessive!Doctor and NSFW parts)

**Day 3:**  
The watch that held Jack’s essence or conscious or soul (Martha wasn’t exactly certain what) lay heavily in her inner dress pocket. Warm against her cold skin; cold despite that. Martha didn’t know what she expected from the watch—would it whisper to her in Jack’s, _her_ Jack’s, voice? Reassure her? Comfort her where this Jack could not or would not?

It lay there. Quiet and heavy and silent.

Martha wanted to take it out of her pocket and leave it in the cottage. Place it on the dresser or hide it in her stocking drawer or under the bed. But she’d promised. And she didn’t go back on her promises. Not to anyone, let alone her lover.

So she carried it, always with the excuse in the back of her head that Rose had entrusted her with the keeping of it should anyone, for some reason, discover she carried around an expensive pocket watch in an inner pocket of her skirt. Oh, and she hated that she needed a reason. An _excuse_.

Because they had landed in 1936 before equal rights (though at least women had the right to vote) where everyone on this stupid farm thought she was Rose’s _servant_ and even her own lover looked through her like she was invisible. Granted, she hadn’t given their final destination or cover story or the consequences of their rather impromptu Doctor-plan (meaning it barely qualified as a _plan_ ) much thought beyond keeping Jack and the Doctor safe.

This was not how Martha envisioned keeping them safe.

But she agreed with Rose—whatever it took to keep their men safe, she’d do.

Not that she’d had very many visions of this current situation. Where they were trapped in another time where her ‘place’ in society was seen as _less_ because of her skin color.

Anger bubbled below the surface, hard and dark and ready to explode. And it’d only been three days. A very long three days where she’d said the wrong thing at least a dozen times, had had to go to the back kitchens for food and cleaning supplies for the cottage the four of them had been given to live in, and had had to endure the stares—or worse the _dismissal_ —from every other person on Broad Oak.

Like they’d never seen a black person before.

She took a deep breath. Then another and another. For God’s sake, she was training to be a doctor! Was more knowledgeable than all the doctors in this time and knew it. Was probably more knowledgeable about alien physiology than all the doctors in her own time, too.

Martha continued her walk around the rapidly darkening grounds, fob watch heavy against her thigh, and shoved all that to the back of her mind. And heart. Wasn’t important. All that was important was that Jack and the Doctor were safe. And for the moment, so were she and Rose.

Feeling better, some of the tension fading away with every exhale, she turned the corner of the house, past the kitchens to the winter garden, on her way back to their cottage. Her fingers were numb in the cold wind blowing off The Channel, but Martha rather thought it was from this whole damn situation rather than the cold February evening.

“There you are.” Jack’s voice, sounding so much like the Doctor’s, startled her.

Martha still hadn’t accepted the softer tones of his new accent as opposed to the brash way he normally talked. Or the quietness of his words, as if every one had been pulled out of him. Or the tentative way he offered each smile as if afraid how they’d be received. Or the way his eyes skidded over each member of their quartet, but he seemed to utterly focused on the horses he and John trained.

But the familiar feel of his hands on her hips, his solid body against hers reassured her. And brought tears to her eyes.

Made her want to run away yet simultaneously curl into him.

“Jack,” she sighed, and didn’t know if she wanted to cry or pull him in for a kiss. Or punch him. Or let him take her right there, against the wall. Or all of the above. “What are you doing?”

Mostly Martha just wanted it to be three days ago and the controlled insanity of life with the Doctor.

Paralyzed with indecision, and very uncertain where she stood in Jack’s life now, Martha remained still. She hadn’t expected him to find her on her walk and certainly hadn’t expected him to hold her as if he’d purposely sought her out for the sole purpose of holding her close.

As if he sought her out for sex. A heated curl of arousal spread through her.

“I missed you,” Jack said, mouth on her neck. “I thought you’d come to my room last night, but you didn’t.”

The curl stuttered and cooled. Had she been supposed to? Martha wasn’t clear on her relationship with Jack. He’d never said, barely spoke a dozen words to her, to anyone far as she could tell, and had _certainly_ never given so much as a hint that he expected her to sneak into his bedroom.

She needed a _How To Deal with A Chameleon Arched Lover_ guide.

“Where’re Rose and t…John?” she asked, scrambling for purchase. Was she supposed to call them Mr. and Mrs. Harkness? Oh, how so very wrong that sounded but Martha valiantly repressed a slightly hysterical giggle.

“John left early for dinner with Rose,” Jack said, his mouth a breath from hers.

The curl heated again. Oh, but she’d missed him. Sex aside, Martha missed sleeping next to him, feeling him reach for her in the middle of the night, not that he slept as much as she did. Wake to him in the same bed as her. The intimacy of their relationship. Missed listening to him talk—one of his naked stories or, more infrequently, bits from his past before the Time Agency. 

“I was left to clean up.”

Yes, she smelled horses on him, but he worked on a horse farm (ranch? Was Broad Oak a horse ranch? Was there a difference?) so didn’t comment. Couldn’t make her voice work.

Whereas her Jack was bold and brash and didn’t care what others thought, this Jack seemed to. The TARDIS’s Chameleon Arch wasn’t just a DNA changer. No, She had changed her Jack completely. Martha’s Jack would never expect her to _sneak_ into his room—he’d most likely be doing the sneaking.

If he bothered to sneak at all.

Not that sneaking had been required since they’d started sleeping together. They’d shared a bedroom in the TARDIS for months now. No sneaking required.

But then he turned those sharp blue eyes on her. That look was the same as her Jack, the same look he gave her during an intimate moment when he was being open and vulnerable. And, Martha liked to think, when he was hers. Somehow that look made the line between Her Jack and This Jack blur.

Despite her confusion and apprehension and her new feelings of being adrift in this sea of strange normalcy, Martha melted. She reached up, wound her hand through Jack’s hair, and sank into their kiss.

 ******  
Day 5**  
Rose stretched a body languid from her lover’s hands and watched John dress for work from the warmth of their bed. He wore brown wool trousers and sturdy black work boots that vaguely reminded her of her first Doctor’s boots. The three shirt layers didn’t surprise her, considering it was the Doctor and it was February.

As far as Rose had been able to tell, John was as immune to the cold February air as the Doctor. Another John-part-of-the-whole-package.

He wore a scarf, the same brown as his trousers, tucked neatly round his neck. He had a very nice navy suit and shiny, pointy shoes (no Chucks). She knew that only because she’d unpacked but had no idea what the TARDIS was thinking when she put that in their bag. Still, she very much wanted to see him in it. And then take it off him, piece by piece.

“You look like a rakish Frenchman out for a country drive,” Rose said and it took her a moment to realize she’d said that aloud.

John raised an eyebrow and gave her that slow, wide smile that made her stomach flip and her skin tingle. He ran his tongue over his lower lip and Rose seriously wondered if he did that on purpose and of he knew what it did to her. Yes. To both.

“A Frenchman come to ravish you?” he asked, stepping closer, all sinuous grace.

“Don’t need a Frenchman,” she shot back, curling her own tongue in the corner of her mouth. His eyes narrowed in on the move and he growled. “Got you.”

Rose had been teasing. John closed the distance between where he stood and the bed in one sensual leap and pinned her to the mattress. “Yes,” he said seriously. His fingers twined with hers, body pressed against hers intimately. Brown eyes held hers, hard and steady and so openly honest Rose forgot how to breathe.

“You have me, my heart. And you are mine.”

Before she could even think of a reply, his mouth pressed hard to hers. He growled her name, but didn’t deepen the kiss. Just that press of lips, hand to hand, eyes watching hers, was arousing. More it was touching and tender and made her heart flip in her chest.

John pulled back, watched her for another long beat, then stood to finish dressing. He hadn’t shaved, and his stubble had rasped pleasantly against her face. Rose shivered and watched him, trying to catalogue the differences between John and the Doctor.

They were few and far between.

The pendant lay cool against her skin and she brushed her fingertips over the jewel. John’s eyes followed the movement, but he didn’t comment and Rose wondered what he saw. Perhaps he simply saw his lover, his wife, touch herself before him.

And then she wondered what it said of her that she could so easily wake every morning to the Doctor’s arms, to his mouth on her skin, his hands on her body, but after five days of waking to John’s arms and John’s kisses and John’s hot body pressed against hers in pleasure, she was ready to run screaming.

Maybe not run screaming. She’d screamed all right, but most definitely not from running scared. John was every bit as passionate as the Doctor.

Her nipples, already tender from John’s hands and teeth, pebbled in the cold room. She shivered and saw her heavy flannel robe on the floor at the end of the bed but didn’t bother. Maybe the cold would shock her system into what needed to be done.

No, it was probably the same reason it’d taken them ages between him regenerating and her fully and totally accepting the new Doctor for them to resume their physical relationship. She needed time to adjust. But for this, they hadn’t had time, and now it’d been five interesting-stressful-coping-managing to survive days of what amounted to a new new new Doctor.

Regeneration was the easiest comparison she could make. And at least John’s body was still the same. Apparently the Chameleon Arch changed Time Lord (complicated) DNA to change his (distinctive) scent into (plain ole) human but not physical characteristics. She wondered how that worked.

There had to be more to the mechanics of it than the three minute explanation the Doctor gave just before Jack screamed in agony.

Rose watched John sit on the vanity bench and tie his shoes. It always gave her a little jolt to see him in the rough wool trousers instead of his suit. But she had to admit, he wore it well. Very well. And the hat? Yeah, him in it made her want to jump him before he could leave.

Which wasn’t at all different from how she usually felt about jumping the Doctor.

The Doctor’s body was still his and yes Rose knew that was a small, very minor, nearly infinitesimal point to dwell on but dear God it was something in this sea of insanity that battered her between holding herself aloof from John and gravitating towards him.

Even the enthusiasm for horses she could understand, the Doctor showed excitement for _everything_ ; horse training was merely another enthusiastic subject for him to talk about and read about and experience. Staying in a cottage on a horse farm she could deal with.

She didn’t mind staying still; it wasn’t the traveling from place to place every day that kept her with the Doctor. It wasn’t the adventure, though she enjoyed that. It was him. His love for life and newness and exploring and knowledge. And for her.

But Rose had absolutely no idea on how to deal with a man who was and was not the man-alien-Time Lord she loved.

And it terrified her. Because she’d loved him through a regeneration. And she’d loved him through separation. And she loved him more today than yesterday. Rose breathed out a laugh and tossed back the covers, rising, naked, from the warmth of their bed. She almost turned to the Doctor to sing the song to him.

John wouldn’t get the reference.

She’d wanted him safe ( _I want you safe My Doctor_ and where had that come from? A memory? Felt like it but Rose couldn’t quite place it.) and agreed to do whatever it took to keep him and Jack safe. Even this.

Still naked, she wrapped her arms around her body and stood by their bedroom window, as John finished his morning ablutions, and looked out over the extensive grounds toward the water. It really was beautiful here. Green and slightly hilly yes, but a kilometer away was a gorgeous forest she wanted to explore. And they were so close to The White Cliffs of Dover and The Channel.

 _There’ll be bluebirds over/The White Cliffs of Dover_ …she really liked that song, but had a feeling it hadn’t been written yet. Couldn’t sing that one, either.

John’s arms wrapped around her, warm body hard against her back and Rose leaned into his touch. His long fingers cupped her breasts, careful, always so careful to avoid her pendant. She wondered why, but then his mouth grazed her neck and he nipped the skin just hard enough for her to shiver.

Whatever else she thought, however else her emotions raced from one end of the spectrum to the other, she couldn’t deny her need for John. He pressed against her, chin resting on her shoulder, lips just brushing her bare skin, and Rose leaned into him, felt his cock stir against her bum.

“Don’t start anything you can’t finish,” she said lightly.

Today was the first day strain-pressure-anxiety hadn’t colored her voice. The difference shocked Rose, but she accepted it. Maybe all she had needed was time. Oh, it wasn’t a magical perfection of acceptance, but she thought she’d finally reconciled the Doctor and John as one being in her mind and body.

Her heart was coming along, too, slowly but surely.

John laughed, but it was a low, dark sound that curled through her in delicious tendrils of need. “Maybe I’ll leave you wet for me,” he whispered against the back of her neck. “So aroused you can’t think of anything else but my mouth and fingers on you. In you.”

Her breath caught. She and the Doctor had never done anything like that. Made love for hours, yes. He’d been the one to show her that her body was more than capable of multiple orgasms. She’d spent forever tasting and touching and teasing him.

But bringing her to the edge of orgasm then leaving her for an entire day?

Oh God, yes. Her body arched into his touch and Rose whimpered at the very thought.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW (very much not safe for reading at work or around children or parents) Rose comes to terms with John’s possessive side, her feelings for him, the differences between John and the Doctor, and their future (Possessive!Doctor)

“Maybe I’ll bring you to the edge of orgasm, with you begging for release. For me to fill you.” John’s mouth brushed along the back of her neck and Rose shivered.

She whimpered and tilted her head, wet already from the slightest brush of his fingers along the tops of her thighs, over her hips. His mouth on her skin. His words. Oh, God, his words.

“Yes,” she moaned and pushed back against him.

John’s fingers teased her wetness and Rose moaned again, tried to arch into his touch.

“Not yet, my heart.” His breath floated across her skin, down her spine. His voice, heavy with lust held all the love and affection he (John-the Doctor-John) felt for her. “I want you to think of me all day. Think of me filling you, your arms tied to the bed, your body flushed for mine as you beg.”

His teeth scraped along her collarbone, up the side of her throat, along her jaw. “ _Beg me_ , My Rose. I want to hear you.”

“Yes,” she sobbed as his fingers glided over her clit. There and gone, over and again. Just enough to tease her and build her. “Yes, fuck me.”

John growled, though at the sentiment or her profanity, Rose didn’t know. Didn’t care. He spun her hard against him, back to the cold window, mouth on hers. Took and took and even more and she gave, all she had and was and still Rose opened for him.

Rose suddenly knew without a doubt two very important things:

He wanted to as John and as such the Doctor—no matter her fears, they were the same man. Some part of the Doctor remained in John and some part of John was undeniably the Doctor. The TARDIS hadn’t created John out of whole cloth—She’d taken aspects of the Doctor to do so.

And dear God, she wanted him to go through with it. Her belly clenched in anticipation and a delicious eagerness shuddered through her. He thrust against her, the rough wool of his trousers only adding a delicious roughness. His fingers clenched on her hips, pulled her hard against him.

“John,” she whispered, the word catching in her throat as a rush of wetness flooded her with the threat-promise-anticipation of his words.

He chuckled darkly against her shoulder, fingers moving from hips to roll her nipples between them and tug hard. Rose’s breath caught and she moaned again, head falling against the window. John stepped forward, pressed her against the window, the cold of the pane a shock to her flushed skin. Rose whimpered again and ground her hips against his, silently begging.

His fingers left her sensitive breasts, trailed lightly over her collarbone, again avoiding her bonding pendant, then down her arms.

John had yet to comment on her tattoos, the marriage bonding tattoos he’d put there himself. It was almost as if he hadn’t noticed them. Perhaps he hadn’t. He didn’t take his shirt off in front of others, not even after a long, hard day of training horses.

He washed up, she knew that, and of course came to bed naked so maybe she was reading too much into it. Maybe modesty was ingrained from the time period. But then he pressed hard against her, fingers slipping onto her slippery wetness, mouth brutal on hers.

Modesty? Pfft.

“I have to leave, my heart,” he whispered against the shell of her ear. A caress, a promise. “I want you thinking of me all day. I want you thinking of me buried between your legs.”

John added a second finger, lazily moving the digits in and out as if he had all the time in the world. Rose clenched around him and pushed against his fingers. John stilled and she moaned, only to have him breathe a dark, promising chuckle along the side of her neck, her jaw.

“I want you thinking about how I’m going to taste your sweetness as you cry out my name. How your taste is going to explode on my tongue.” His fingers gentled, mouth soft on hers. “How I’m going to make you scream until all you remember is my name.”

“John.” It was a whimper, a plea. Begging.

But he stepped back, slid his fingers from her. As she watched, John slid the fingers that had, moments ago, teased her to a begging mess of arousal, onto his mouth. That talented tongue of his swirled around the digits and Rose’s breath caught on a strangled moan. How often had the Doctor told her he liked to taste her? How often had he done so, taking his time with every lick, every taste?

Apparently, John enjoyed that, too. Of course he did. Still the same man.

Rose pushed all that aside. Scream in frustration—yes. Run? No. _**Never.**_

A cog clicked in her heart.

John wouldn’t get the reference to _I love you more today than yesterday_ because Spiral Staircase hadn’t recorded it yet. What she needed was to keep her priorities straight. And, perhaps, admit that she was already a little in love with John.

The way he held her, despite the human warmth and single heartbeat, was very Doctor-like.  
The way he said her name and kissed her hello and smiled at her and held her hand were also all Doctor-like.

All the little things that Rose loved about the Doctor she saw in John. The ear-tugging when he wasn’t certain, the rubbing of the back of his neck when he was embarrassed. That toe-curling thing he did with his tongue across his teeth when he looked at her. 

Her body wanted John; her heart ached for the connection she felt with the Doctor.  
Her mind tried to separate the two but failed.

In the five days they’d been here, Rose had realized that—separating the Doctor from John only led to headaches and heartaches and unnecessary pain. Yes, she wanted to scream from the complications of this newfound relationship, but she couldn’t break things off either. Because doing so sure as hell wouldn’t keep either the Doctor or Jack safe, but also because…because what?

Wanted John as much as the Doctor. Same lover.  
Wanted John safe as much as the Doctor. Same man.  
Wanted…wanted…she didn’t now. But Rose knew it was there, a nameless, unidentifiable feeling that floated around her heart. Afraid to attach itself.

She’d panicked two days ago when she thought it was because she wanted to Doctor to be human. But to her immeasurable relief, Rose had quickly dismissed that. Human, Time Lord, Time Lord-Human hybrid, it didn’t matter. She wanted him, loved him, and would do everything to keep him safe.

 _Just needed time_ , she realized.

Then John was there, pulling her to him, mouth slanting over hers in a hard, domineering taste. Rose whimpered, opened to him. Capitulated. Submitted. Surrendered. Wound her arms around his neck and pulled him closer.

Just as abruptly, he pulled back. “What are you doing today?” he asked, his mouth gliding along her shoulder as if he brought her to the brink of orgasm every day then left her wanting, on the verge of begging.

Rose cleared her throat and tried to remember what he was talking about. Oh. Right. Her day.

Bitching to Martha about our circumstances.  
Hiding in the TARDIS.  
Pretending to mend and clean as if that’s the foremost worry on my simple little mind and I know women did other things in 1936 but dear God, I’m bored.

She shuddered in his arms and held him closer. At least John remembered loving her.

Martha had told her what had happened— _all_ that had happened—with her and Jack and her utter confusion over having sex with a man who expected her to sneak into his room and never utter a word about their clandestine affair.

“Martha.” Rose stopped and cleared her throat. She didn’t miss the smug look that crossed John’s face. Or the way his fingers flexed over her hips, how he pulled her just a touch closer. Against him so she felt his hardness clear through her. Wrapped her in his arms and his warmth and his love.

“Martha and I might go into town,” Rose said, purposefully steadier. “Nice walk, brisk air. Little shopping, little mingling with the locals, some conversation, it’ll be all good.”

His too-warm hands framed her face and his oddly flat brown eyes bored into hers. They still shone like the Doctor’s but lacked an indefinable sparkle the Doctor had. But she still wanted him. Ached and burned and yearned for him.

“Have you had tea yet with Mrs. Fitzpatrick?”

“Amélie? Ah, no.” Rose grinned and watched his eyes focus on her lips. She deliberately licked her lips, then caught his thumb between her teeth when he traced her lower lip. Rose sucked on the digit for a moment before remembering his question. “She’s a little too, ah, posh for me. Though I understand her cook makes the perfect cup of tea.”

John frowned. His expression, his eyes, flashed confusion and anger and love and annoyance and so many, too many, other emotions for her to catch. Rose frowned back at him, but didn’t comment. It’d only been five days and frankly, for all her very recent realizations, she was still learning her way around this new man.

“It’s important to me that you make friends with Mrs. Fitzpatrick,” John said. “Important that she doesn’t see you as lower than she is.”

Rose blinked. She hadn’t expected that. “What do you mean?”

John’s smile was warm and slow as it spread over his face, though the dark passion still burned in his gaze.

“We won’t always be here,” John said in a quiet voice. “At Broad Oak I mean. But in Kent, well, I like it here. Don’t you?”

Rose managed to nod. Confused and aroused and very close to begging and a little embarrassed how desperately she wanted to do that. Wanted him to bring her to the brink and leave her there all day. She and the Doctor had often spent hours in bed making love, but not like this. Never like this. And she throbbed from the intensity of her want.

“It’s a good place, booming economy, and by the coast. We could start our own horse farm.”

“You want to stay here?” Rose asked tentatively, heart thudding in her chest as if it tried to break free and gallop away.

“I want us to have our own place,” John countered. “I want us to have a house and a place to raise a family.” He paused and searched her face, still cupping her cheeks, eyes still darkly intense. “Our family. With our own curtains and walls for my drawings and photos of our family. It’s what you’ve always wanted. And I want to give that to you, my heart.”

Rose’s heart skipped a beat in its pounding and her stomach swooped at his endearment. It wasn’t the first time he’d used that, called her my heart, but it was so odd coming from the Doctor’s lips. And damn it if a flood of moisture didn’t escape her with all that endearment meant. 

John grinned and pressed closer to her, fingers teasing her inner thigh. Almost enough, not nearly and Rose shifted her hips against him. His hands settled on her hips and held her still, thumbs caressing higher and higher and so close that she knew if she shifted just enough…

But John held her steady, a knowing smile dancing around his mouth.

It also served to distract her from the real conversation.

The one where John made plans—permanent, staying in Kent, on a farm, stationary in their life plans. Granted, she and the Doctor hadn’t really discussed those things. Like what they’d do if/when she did get pregnant. Right up until this very moment, Rose had assumed they’d continue to live on the TARDIS as they raised a family.

She couldn’t imagine not raising her children on the beloved ship and had a feeling the TARDIS wouldn’t want to miss out on that, either. Were John’s words planted as part of his John Harkness persona? Or were they the Doctor’s true feelings bleeding through?

Licking her lips she ventured, “And having tea with Amélie will help with this plan?”

“Having tea with the wife of a prominent landowner will go a long way to us establishing our own space here,” John corrected. His hands slid up her belly, to breasts that ached for his touch, over her shoulders, down to lightly caress her marriage tattoos, to take her hands.

That, at least, felt right-familiar-Rose-and-Doctor.

“Make friends with Amélie,” Rose said, “so we’re not viewed as lower class but part of the landed gentry. Yeah?”

Was that bitterness in her tone? A bit, perhaps. But John’s smile lightened his entire face and it was so reminiscent of the Doctor that Rose’s heart squeezed painfully. When he kissed her, that hard and fast press of his lips to hers that told her as much about his feelings as the slow way he made love to her, Rose understood.

Or she understood that she didn’t really understand.

“Exactly. They’re still very old fashioned here,” John said, happy grin that was just slightly not the Doctor’s stretching his mouth wide. “I don’t want them looking down on you. I want you to be accepted here.”

“Why? Planning on leaving me here?” Rose snapped and immediately wished she hadn’t.

Oh God, where had that come from? Until those words escaped her, Rose would’ve sworn she and the Doctor had moved past that—no more leaving for her own good or jumping off to save the day without her. No more separation. No more white walls or time apart.

Was she afraid the Doctor still planned to do that?

No. But John? He’d said _you_ not _us_. Did she think he’d leave her?

Maybe…and maybe that was why Rose had had so much trouble accepting him. Because she didn’t know how he’d react. What he’d do. He was just different enough from the Doctor that Rose didn’t know all the nuances of his reactions.

“No!” John shouted, breaking into her racing thoughts, clearly shocked at her suggestion. Fingers flexed hard on her arms, pulled her even tighter against him. Brown eyes blazed black with panic. “I’d never leave you, Rose. Ever. I can’t. I can’t…” he trailed off and shook his head. Chest heaving for air, jaw clenched not in anger or annoyance but fear.

Terror.

“No, my heart,” he whispered, forehead touching hers. Rose reached for their bond and felt that reassuring silver-blue light and the solid enveloping kiss of his love. “I’d never leave you.”

“But you want us to fit in.”

“I want,” he said quietly, lips brushing over hers, his hands gentler on her waist, fingers brushing lightly over her skin, “a place to raise our family like you always wanted.”

“And what,” she stopped and licked her lips. “What do _you_ want, John?”

“You. Only ever wanted you.” The fierceness in his gaze, the stripped bare honesty, the faint buzzing of their bond starkly panicked. Rose carefully released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d held and nodded.

“And the farm?”

“Rose, what’s wrong?” he asked, frowning slightly. “I thought this was what you wanted? A place for us to raise our family. Finally settle down, no more traveling.”

No more traveling? _No more?_ No. Not what she wanted. Her heart raced and before she answered _John_ , Rose wondered if that was what _the Doctor_ wanted.

“I just want you,” she whispered as close to the truth as she could get with her heart in her throat and her mind whirling in a hundred directions. And dear God, her body still ached for relief, for his touch on her, his cock pounding into her.

“I love you, Rose.”

John kissed her and Rose kissed him back and a small piece of her heart withered just a little. She didn’t know if this was some sort of plan of the Doctor’s, where he planted his John persona purposely so he (as the Doctor) didn’t have to tell her about settling down or if it was something else.

The minute—maybe not the minute but pretty damn close—he returned to his Time Lord self, Rose was sitting him down and they were talking this out. Talking the entire thing out even if she had to strap him down and somehow not take advantage of him like that. She shoved those very enticing possibilities to one side for later.

They’d talk first. And then explore the possibilities.

He broke the kiss, pulled her to him once more. Rose felt him hard against her, but he only caressed her face, cupped her breasts, leaned down to kiss the hollow of her shoulder. Gentle and soft and lovingly tender.

John grinned and winked at her, and she watched him leave with a smile that felt as if it’d shatter her face any second. Sighing, she sank to the floor, back to the wall and resisted banging her head against the window frame.

She didn’t care that she was still naked and now freezing without the warmth of John’s embrace and love, and still desperate for release; she hadn’t the energy to move. Cold air caressed her flushed skin and served only to arouse her more.

Her first instinct was that John was so not like the Doctor.

Her second, far more accurate thought was that he most certainly was. John kept her as close as the Doctor did, not that Rose minded; she, too, was still afraid that she’d somehow be sucked back across the Void and into that other world.

“Even after all this time,” she whispered into the emptiness of the room. Winston appeared from nowhere and leaped onto her lap.

“We’re both afraid of being separated.” Rose buried her face in Winston’s soft fur. “But it shows differently in John.”

Much differently. No, maybe not that differently and for the first time Rose wondered how much of himself the Doctor held back from her. The Doctor barely left her side. Except for that one disastrous trip on Midnight, they’d been together constantly since her return. Touching, holding hands, making love.

Never letting go. Changing her DNA so she could carry their child. Bonding with her in the marriage ceremony. Rose’s stomach swooped as she realized how desperately afraid the Doctor was of her leaving.

Of them running out of time.

Now, with John off doing horsy things on the farm, he kept her close in other ways. Still afraid of losing her, of her disappearing—John bound her to him through control.

Rose shuddered in the cold room, the heat of arousal still throbbing through her and she was tempted to find that release herself. Her fingers slid over her inner thigh, her wet heat beckoning her touch. However, something stopped her from touching herself and she didn’t have to really think about what it was.

The sound of John’s voice as he kissed along her skin. The darkness, the promise. Even now, it shuddered through her in sensual licks of fire and passion.

“What am I going to do?” she asked the cat, who purred in response.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Slightly NSFW aftermath of previous chapter) In which Rose and Martha talk, and Rose comes to terms with John’s possessive side, her feelings for him, the differences between John and the Doctor (Sorry, had to split Chapter 6 into 2 parts—6 and 7; it was 6,000 words!)

“What am I going to do?” she repeated to the empty room.

Rose couldn’t deny how John’s words, his touch, his actions, his promise sent heat clutching through her. Or how his warning-promise-vow to her as he left her on the edge of orgasm even now made her want to seek him out and _beg_.

Damn it, she needed to focus! She needed to concentrate on keeping John and Jack safe, not on how many ways John could make her come and how many ways she wanted him to try.

Winston purred and nuzzled her cheek and Rose felt a little better. She had debated leaving him on the TARDIS (again) but couldn’t bear to do that to their cat (again). He hadn’t wanted to be left behind, either, and had streaked out of the doors before Rose could even scoop him up.

She swore he’d given her an indignant look as he stalked off. It’d been Martha who scooped him up and Martha whom Winston had allowed to carry him. Then the Doctor and Jack had regained consciousness and taken the bags and _John_ had teased Martha on her affection for Winston and for a moment, such a brief beat in time, it’d felt normal.

But then Jack had commented on something or other and his voice, his accent, had sounded just like the Doctor’s— _John’s_ —and Rose had cursed the fact she’d forgotten the reasons for this trip and had stumbled on the uneven ground in the fading sun.

“We could’ve planet hopped,” she whispered to the cat. “There’s no guarantee landing _here_ for 3 months will be the same 3 months as them. Remember the Blitz? That’s where we found you.”

Winston purred and butted his nose against her cheek. Rose didn’t know if he understood her, but his affection was an uncomplicated comfort.

“Rose?” Martha peeked into the room and didn’t bother asking before she entered already dressed for another day on Broad Oak Manor.

Startled, Rose looked up at her friend. Martha looked at her for a beat, blinked, then calmly tossed the heavy flannel robe in her direction and politely looked away while Rose, embarrassed, stood and slipped it on. Rose mumbled a thanks and looked to the wash basin. She needed to start her morning routine.

Rose sat on the bed instead, feeling adrift and aroused and wondering what bits of the Doctor’s personality the TARDIS had enhanced and if it had been Her idea or the Doctor’s. Or had it been a natural occurrence?

The Doctor held her close so John did as well.  
The Doctor loved her so John loved her.  
The Doctor feared her leaving before they had an eternity of love and laughter and exploring and running.  
John kept her tied to him in the only way a working man of 1936 could.

Dear God, what did it say about her that she wanted both—the Doctor beside her and John’s dominant passion?

“I miss him,” Rose said instead, memories and thoughts and feelings and need swirling through her.

“I know.” Martha sat beside her and leaned her head on Rose’s shoulder, fingers digging into Winston’s fur. “I do, too. Both of them.”

“I don’t think the Doctor thought this out very well.” Rose cleared her throat and closed her eyes.

But apparently he did. The settling down part at least, if she believed (and she did) that John and the Doctor shared the same wants and desires and needs and fears and hopes. She wanted to ask Martha her opinion, but couldn’t form the words. Not yet, not about this, not with the memory so close and present and beating through her.

“I was just telling Winston,” Rose said instead, “that jumping time tracks isn’t exact. The hunters could’ve landed months into this future, there’s no guarantee that if they find us, it won’t have been moments after we lost them.”

“Like what Jack did with that alien ambulance, right?” Martha nodded. She turned, looked at the bureau where the Doctor’s watch sat as innocuously as possible, and nodded again. “We’ll deal. Got no choice, really. And I’m not losing Jack before I decide how I feel about him.”

Rose laughed and felt some of the tension that was her new constant friend ease. She changed the subject because she didn’t want to talk about her very conflicting feelings any more. “Do you think leaving the watches lying around is a good idea?” They’d had this conversation before, nearly every day, but neither had come to a firm conclusion. “We can’t open the watches too soon.”

“Tempting, though isn’t it?” Martha laughed. Winston leaped from Rose’s arms to hers and she accepted the cat with a coo of affection. “You know, when the Doctor offered me a trip, I didn’t think I’d be stuck on Earth so darn much. All of time and space, he said.”

Martha shook her head but there was no bitterness in her voice and that, too, eased through Rose. Being trapped, sans TARDIS, in 1969 had been rough. For Rose, this was rougher. But for Martha, her friend seemed calmer despite Martha’s role as a maid. Rose envied her that serenity.

Chuckling, Rose said, “I still don’t think the Doctor thought out this hiding part very well.”

“I do.” Martha snorted. “I think he thought this out far in advance. Not in the _Let’s go find creatures hunting me just so I could turn human_ , but on the _List of ways I can protect Rose_. Trust me, that’s all he’s thinking.”

“Martha,” Rose said in a harder tone than Martha’s light one warranted. “He’d protect you, too. Even if I wasn’t here, he’d do it.”

“I know,” Martha said slowly. “But it feels like more than that. Jack said something about saving all the money Fitzpatrick pays them for the future. Has John said anything about your future?”

Confused, Rose nodded. She licked her lips, body finally coming under her own control, and said in a quiet, uneven voice, “John wants to stay here. Get our own farm. Settle down. Seems to think it’s what I’ve always wanted. How did you know?”

“The Doctor has said a couple things I didn’t put together until now. Right now, I swear, Rose.” Martha looked at her with an appraising glint in her eyes.

“When was this?”

“Right before Silous, when he was showing me your DNA charts. I was asking him a bunch of questions, all sorts of things, really,” Martha admitted with a wave of her hand that Rose’d come to realize mean ‘stuff us doctors understand but would make others’ eyes glaze over with boredom’.

“Mostly about what the changes had done to you.” Martha tilted her head and set Winston on the floor. “Nothing about why you didn’t want to be touched, though—never did figure that out.”

Martha shook her head and stood, holding out a hand to pull up Rose. Rose complied, but her legs trembled slightly. She deliberately pressed her thighs together but the move did nothing to alleviate the ache.

“What.” She cut herself off and tried again. “What did he say?”

“Doing things for you, wanting everything to be perfect. Wanting you to be happy. I think,” Martha said slowly as she stared out the window. Rose knew her friend didn’t see the view but looked internally.

“I think,” Martha repeated, “this is his way of offering you a future. He didn’t say it, but I heard it slip, mumble really, then he got all embarrassed and started tugging his ear and rubbing his neck and whirling around with information and more charts and medical texts and such.”

Martha took a deep breath and went to stand by the window. Rose wanted to join her, or demand she finish her story, or something, but her feet were rooted to the spot, and her vocal chords were frozen, too. Winston lay across her feet, and Rose was grateful for the warmth.

Because she suddenly knew what the Doctor had said. Not the exact words of course, but it went something along the lines of having a life she deserved and one that made her happy and on and on about what he thought she wanted despite what she said.

“When I first met him, he was so different, so distant,” Martha said. “All crazy, jumping from place to place to see the next great thing. I see the way he looks at you, Rose.”

Martha laughed and turned, leaning against the window with her arms crossed. She shook her head, hair in a braid circling her head. Said it was the easiest way to let her hair grow out from the straighteners she used that she didn’t have access to in 1936.

“His Rose SmileTM.” Martha shook her head again and pushed off the window. Rummaging through Rose’s small closet, she pulled out a long, brown tweed dress for the day. “And I see how he watches you. He always does, even when he’s talking to others—anyone else. You’re always in his line of sight, always close enough for him to reach out and touch.”

Rose nodded, yes, but that was the Doctor and that was because of her earlier thoughts. Their terror at being ripped from each other again. After all they’d been through since her return, the closeness, the bonding, the talk of the future, Rose didn’t think either of them would survive another separation like that.

“Remember,” Martha added with a prod in the direction of the wash basin.

Broad Oak itself had running water and gas heat, but the cottage hadn’t been upgraded yet and still had fireplaces and a single bathroom in the hallway. The running water for the tub heated very slowly and Rose and Martha had decided on their first day that John and Jack deserved a hot bath more than they.

Plus a bath got rid of the horse smell better than a quick wash in the basin and Rose refused to go to bed with a John who smelled of manure.

“I know how he feels for you,” Martha continued. “I stood up for you at your wedding!”

“That’s the Doctor,” Rose reminded her friend, partly amazed the words made it past her lips. “You know what we’ve been through. But John. He doesn’t remember any of it.”

“Rose,” Martha said in a tone that clearly said Rose was thick. And maybe she was. At the moment, she certainly felt it.

“ _John_ looks at you the same.” Martha stated. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about how the Doctor—as the Doctor or as John Harkness,” and here she snickered, “looks at you. Like you can’t possibly be real, like you’ll disappear any second if he lets you go or looks away. I think these hunters are just convenient.”

Martha shook her head and looked straight ahead, as if the opposite wall had all her answers. Winston meowed and rubbed through Rose’s legs, his warmth shocking her into washing her face with the organic soap they’d brought from the TARDIS.

“He wants to be human for you.”

Rose started so bad, she dropped the soap. Winston hissed and sprinted under the bed. She watched him mutely as Martha’s words swirled in her head. 

“What?” she whispered through dry lips.

“So he doesn’t have to fight for your future,” Martha was saying. Rose blinked at her and Martha clarified in that same tone that said Rose was being deliberately stupid. “The two of you. So he doesn’t have to mourn your death for the next thousand years. You two are trying for a baby, how terrified is he over that thought? Over losing you and the baby? Over losing a chance at a family?”

Rose tried to break in, to form words or to say _something_. But all she could do was stare at her friend in awe over her mature view on all of this. Really, Rose could kiss Martha. Rose wanted to tell Martha how she felt about the other woman, how she’d grown to think of her as a sister, her closest, dearest friend, but the words trapped in her throat and Rose felt so very young and petty.

She wasn’t the only one having trouble here, and yet Martha was calm and rational and logical and kind.

“I thought he understood though.” Rose closed her eyes and sank onto the chair by her vanity. Her heart hurt and she wondered what else the Doctor had believed, what else he wanted for her that he hadn’t said. What other stupid, foolish things he thought she wanted.

“When he’s back,” Rose muttered, “we’re having a little talk. I thought we were past this. I thought he understood.”

Martha chuckled, a soft, understanding sound. “He became human because this way he can offer you a real future. Granted in 1936, before penicillin and tampons and mobiles, but it’s his way of giving you what he thinks you deserve. A home, stability, a future.”

“He’s a bloody idiot, then,” Rose snapped. 

“Fool for love!” Martha said cheerfully.

Rose nodded and took a deep breath, and the last of her tension, anger, hopelessness left her with that exhale. She picked Winston up from where he tentatively walked back to her. “What would I do without you, Martha?”

“You’d be lost and adrift.” Martha laughed. “But at least here we have the control over when to leave. Sure, we still have 85 days to go, but we don’t have to wait on anyone like we did when we didn’t have the TARDIS.”

Rose slowly looked at her friend. “You’re right. Here, we do have the power.” She laughed at that, her first free sound since leaving Silous. Martha grinned back at her. “Girl power.”

Martha stood and offered her hand to Rose. “Let’s go see our other girl and call Sarah Jane. They’ve both got to be worried.”

Rose squeezed her hand and filed all this away for a nice long conversation with the Doctor. Before she got pregnant, she was going to sit him down and they were going to discuss things like rational adults. No more hedging or running or changing the subject or distracting with kisses and sex.

She’d proposed having a child so soon after returning to this universe because she’d been terrified of losing time, of running out of it, of something else happening before they had their time together.

Maybe she should’ve waited. At least talked about what they both wanted. Other than a life together and a family.

“I’ll need that flowchart after all,” Rose muttered as she dressed for the cold winter’s day. “We’re definitely not on the same page.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who are these people asking around the manor house? Also, tea with Amélie. Slight NSFW parts at the beginning (Possessive!Doctor)

**Day 12:**  
The day was overcast and cold, but neither woman cared as they knelt in the front gardens and overturned wet, fresh soil.

Rose found comfort in planting this garden, a sense of normalcy—even of continuity. Part of her wanted to see it bloom, see it in the spring then summer as the flowers opened and embraced the sunlight. That part of her wanted to know that what she planted and nursed and tended had survived.

The other part of her wanted to get out of Dodge as fast as possible…well, not really. The other part of her was very confused. Rose didn’t necessarily want to stay here in 1936 Kent, but. And it was that _but_.

Rose focused back on the garden. This was the first time she’d attempted to garden herself, instead of simply appreciating the already completed gardens she’d visited with the Doctor over the time they’d been together. She found she quite enjoyed it. More than that, and oh, it was that more. That _but_.

Maybe there was something to settling down. Not settling down, really. But staying in one place long enough to watch things grow. Oh, she supposed she could do that in the TARDIS, start a garden there, grow their own fruits and vegetables instead of buying them wherever they happened to be.

But.

Despite herself, Rose thought about John’s words more than she liked. Was settling down in one place really so bad? It wasn’t the one place that bothered Rose, though she did love the traveling. It was, well, a lot of things, she admitted as she dug a hole for another flower bulb.

What would they do all day in one place? A job? No, certainly not. But the more she thought about John’s plan—their own farm, their own land, a place to raise a family—the more Rose wondered how much was human-John saying that and how much of the Doctor had seeped through.

And she wondered how tempted she was to ‘settle down’ and how long either of them would last. Maybe this 3 months hiatus, as it were, was enough. Maybe this was what she needed to get the curiosity of ‘settling down’ out of her system.

She stared down at the garden she and Martha had spent hours on. Even if nothing had grown yet and wasn’t likely to for at least another month, she was proud of what they’d managed. But even with so many days left before their inevitable departure, Rose mourned the loss of a garden she nurtured.

She shifted to reach another bulb, rubbing her thighs together and stifled a moan. Once again, John had woken her with hands and mouth and fingers. Once again, he admonished her to be silent as he turned her over and took her from behind. Rose watched her fingers clench on the delicate bulb as memory and arousal flooded her.

She’d obeyed. Willingly, eagerly, enthusiastically, she’d obeyed. And Rose was shocked to discover a part of herself that listened, that… well, that submitted to John’s commands. That wanted to submit. That enjoyed it, had even grown to crave it.

The dark hunger that twisted through her and matched John’s. Every kiss, every touch, every nip of his teeth and scrap of his nails and fingers pressed to her hips and thighs. It was almost as if the Doctor’s control hardened in John.

Hardened and intensified and strengthened. The darkness the Doctor hid behind smiles and grins and running and allons-y! was no longer quite so adeptly concealed.

Even now, outside on the last cold days of February, next to Martha in the garden, Rose _wanted_. After John had taken her with bruises on her hips and teeth marks on her breasts and her nails drawing welts down his back and her own teeth marks on his shoulders, John had held her tight, wrapped around her-her wrapped around him, and whispered to her in Gallifreyan.

She had only been able to pick out only a couple words as he spoke against her skin, dozing in the pre-dawn light. Love and always and need and _Rose_.

More proof, as if she’d needed it, that John and the Doctor were one and the same. One in the same. Same man. (New new Doctor) If that was the same, if the Doctor’s Gallifreyan seeped through into John, then did John’s desire to settle down come from the Doctor as well?

Or was that all John? All _human_ John? Or, and as soon as she thought of it Rose realized this last was probably the most correct—the Doctor’s belief that _she_ wanted to settle down.

Rose shook her head to dispel the thoughts racing round and round, and brushed a hand over one hip. She didn’t need to see her skin or feel where he’d held her; she knew every mark he left on her and loved every single one. 

She hadn’t said anything about the Gallifreyan, hadn’t commented to him, not wanting to break the spell or cause him to question words he shouldn’t remember. She held him close and when he’d said he loved her, the words had caught in her throat—rough and heavy. Wanting to burst free but unable to do so.

“Rose?” Jerking from her thoughts, Rose looked sharply up at her friend.

Martha looked over at her, an appraising glint in her gaze. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Rose said. She cleared her throat and desperately tried to push the throbbing need clenching her sex to the background of her mind.

Martha didn’t look like she believed her, but didn’t say anything. Torn between not saying anything and confessing everything, Rose wondered how that conversation would go.

“Rose!”

Startled from her erotic memories, Rose turned and fell backwards. Her bum throbbed, tender from where John had spanked her in a deliciously arousing punishment for moaning his name after he’d told her to be absolutely silent; a punishment Rose was eager to experience again.

She had no idea she’d enjoy the erotic punishment so very much. And crave more.

Ugh. Rose really needed to rein herself in. This was getting out of hand—it wasn’t like she and the Doctor hadn’t been having sex in a variety of places and in a variety of positions for months before this.

But John…he took on a darker, more possessive, and different eroticism and she was a quivering mess of need. Yeah, she really needed to get a grip.

Taking off her gloves and wiping her hands on her wide-legged grey wool trousers that made her feel like Katherine Hepburn, Rose stood and watched Amélie hurry down the path.

“Uh oh,” Rose muttered to Martha who had also stood and waited for the other woman. “I’ve never seen her move so fast.”

They hadn’t yet had tea; Rose had managed to put Amélie off as politely as possible until she felt up to tea with the mistress of Broad Oak. And all courting Amélie’s good graces in the Kent and in her and John’s lives and futures, implied.

Now, watching Amélie all but run down the dirt path that led to their cottage, Rose felt a sense of foreboding that had nothing to do with postponed tea, fitting in, or establishing her place in current society.

“Rose.” Amélie nodded, paused and took in deep breaths. “I’m glad I caught you here.”

“Would you like tea, Amélie?” Rose asked, apprehension creeping icily through her veins. “Come inside where it’s warmer.”

“No.” Amélie shook her head but paused another moment to steady her breathing. “Mrs. Michaels, the cook, just came from St. Margaret’s.” Amélie’s piercing green gaze shot to Rose’s, hooked her.

Fingers curling into her trousers, Rose nodded slowly. She didn’t like this. No one raced down the path to tell another about the cook’s trip to town. Apprehension turned to alarm and Rose tried to swallow it down.

“Is she well?” Rose asked, the words sounding thick and heavy on her tongue, though Mrs. Michaels’s wellbeing wasn’t what Amélie’s visit was about.

“There are people there asking after your brother-in-law.” Amélie said with no further preamble. “They’re asking after Jack Harkness.”

Beside her, Rose felt Martha stiffen but knew her friend offered no other expression. Martha wouldn’t reveal anything to Amélie or anyone else about Jack. She wanted him safe.

_(I want you safe, My Doctor)_

“What,” Rose said the word slowly as if it had entirely too many letters for her mouth to fit around. She licked her lips. “Who are they?”

“I don’t know, they claim to be from the government. Some sort of Top Secret agency, they won’t say who, but they’re very official about it.” Amélie studied her, but Rose merely shook her head.

Torchwood. With absolute certainty and a heavy ball of ice solidifying in her belly, Rose knew it was Torchwood who looked for Jack. They did not need Torchwood asking questions, not about any of them.

“They do have a photo, a rather old one,” Amélie continued in the face of Rose’s silence. “Mrs. Michaels said it looked almost exactly like Jack, but…”

Amélie trailed off and Rose wanted to shake the rest of that sentence out of her. With a calmness she hadn’t known she possessed, Rose nodded politely. Her mind raced and she wanted to reach to the side and feel the reassuring squeeze of Martha’s hand.

Rose kept perfectly still and waited. “But?” she asked curiously.

Was that her voice? It sounded so distant. And normal. Politely normal and even and just barely interested. She swallowed again, or tried to around the lump lodged in her throat.

“The photo is old,” Amélie admitted. “Mrs. Michaels thought at least thirty years old and taken in one of the Indian colonies, but the man in the photo looked exactly like Jack does now.”

Answers, rebuttals, excuses, half-formed words tumbled around her brain, but Rose pressed her lips together to keep them in. Calm, she needed to remain calm and not give any of her fear, her terror that Torchwood had found them, from seeping through. All she could picture was Yvonne Hartman’s casual arrogance that she was right about everything and knew better than anyone.

Someone just as fanatic was looking for Jack.

Rose didn’t want to think about what they’d do if Torchwood found the Doctor now. About the history they’d change. Or the future they’d change. Would destroying Torchwood now mean Canary Wharf never happened? Or would she destroy the timeline? Destroy it and this world?

“I don’t understand,” Rose said and was surprised those were the words that had trickled through the muddled mess of her thoughts. “Jack was a child thirty years ago.”

Amélie nodded but the look in her eyes told another story. Not mistrust, not exactly, but Rose couldn’t quite place it. Curiosity most definitely, but there was something deeper and Rose had a suspicion that something was fear.

What did Amélie have to fear?

“I’ll put the tea on,” Martha said. “And make sure Winston has enough food.”

Amélie didn’t so much as glance at Martha, but Rose turned to her friend and nodded. She met Martha’s dark gaze and nodded again. _Winston has enough food_ was their code, one of many—gather what they needed to make a quick getaway.

Their first morning, when this had been nothing more than just another adventure, they’d laughed about codes and signals. Then the whole misunderstanding about Mrs. Harkness had happened and neither woman was certain how much influence the TARDIS had over Her psychic blanket.

So she and Martha had come up with codes Just In Case. Until this moment, with Amélie looking more scared than Rose, and a foreboding that echoed with every heartbeat, Rose didn’t actually think they’d need those codes.

Rose wanted to ask Amélie what had her so frightened, and took a step closer to do just that. She reached out, compassion for this woman warring with her need to keep the Doctor safe. But Amélie flinched and looked to the side.

After a moment, Amélie looked back at Rose and asked in a lighter, more distant tone, “Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” Rose said with as much honesty as possible. Theories and fears were a far cry from certainty. Unless she was being completely paranoid—not an unreasonable assumption.

“Are they still in the village?” Rose asked instead. Apparently her brain was listing her questions for her in order of importance and Rose was grateful. “I can’t imagine what they’d want with Jack, but…”

But what? _I’m curious? I want to suss out the enemy? I want to make sure my family is safe?_ There were a myriad of ways Rose could finish that sentence but none of them she felt comfortable saying to Amélie. 

“I’ll drive you,” Amélie offered.

Rose looked to the house where Martha had disappeared to, but silently nodded. “Let me tell Martha where we’re going.”

If she thought that was odd, Amélie said nothing. Rose didn’t run into the house, but her feet moved very fast into the kitchen where Martha was making tea. The second Rose entered, Martha whirled around, tense and ready to run.

“Amélie’s driving me into the village,” Rose said the instant she entered the kitchen.

“We’re packed,” Martha said as she clicked off the tea and stepped forward. Her eyes were sharp, body taut but ready, not on the verge of a breakdown and Rose wondered what she’d have done if she’d had to do this on her own. Without Martha here with her. “I put the bags in the downstairs closet like we planned.”

“Good.” Rose took a deep breath. “We’ll still head south to Dover; it’s only a couple hours or so walk. I’d steal the car, but I don’t want anyone using it to track us.” She paused then added, “Even if they could in 1936.”

“I have our passports,” Martha added.

Both Rose’s reiteration of their destination and Martha’s account of their belongings was unnecessary—they both knew what needed to be done.

“I’ll give you 2 hours,” Martha continued as Rose dropped her gardening gloves on the table and the women moved to the coat closet. “If you’re not back by then, I’ll grab John and Jack and go to the village to look for you.”

Rose nodded and grabbed her fancy gloves and knitted hat from the closet for appearances sake. She exchanged the heavy wool coat she’d used to garden for the longer green-striped one. “Be careful,” she told Martha.

“You, too,” Martha said and hugged her tight.

Amélie drove them to St. Margaret’s at Cliffe in a car Rose couldn’t begin to know the name of. They’d been here nearly two weeks and Rose had been as far to the village a couple times with Martha for food, but nothing more.

But they’d called Sarah Jane just the other day and she’d told them about St. Margaret’s during the War when it was evacuated and the town fortified against potential Nazi invasion across The Channel. And the fact that Sir Peter Ustinov eventually moved there—Rose reminded herself to tell the Doctor that tidbit once all this was over. He’d love it.

“Who are these people?” Amélie asked as they made the short trip into the village. “And don’t tell me you don’t know.”

“Do you?” Rose countered, still concerned-unsettled-suspicious as to Amélie’s reaction.

“No,” Amélie replied. Her fingers tightened around the steering wheel for a heartbeat then she relaxed marginally. “No. Not these people.”

“Are…” Rose trailed off.

She wanted to ask if Amélie was hiding anything—more specifically _what_ she was hiding. But that wasn’t really her business. Except it most definitely was her business if it meant the Doctor and Jack were in danger.

Amélie turned to face her as the moved down the road. “Not these people,” she reiterated.

“All right,” Rose allowed. If this turned out to not be Torchwood or turned out to be someone Jack knew before he met up with them in 1930 New York, then she’d find out what Amélie hid. Until then, her first priority was the protection of her family.

“After this,” Amélie said lightly as they pulled into the town center, “how about that tea?”

Rose laughed, a softly strained laugh that did nothing to help with the tension. “Sounds lovely.”

Amélie parked the car and led Rose to the town market where Mrs. Michaels had met the strangers asking questions. St. Margaret’s was a typical English village where, unless you were born here too, you were still an outsider when you died.

Far as Rose knew, Amélie hadn’t been born here though she’d not managed to discover where Amélie had been born. Martha agreed with her that it probably wasn’t important, but one never knew.

“Mr. Banks, lovely to see you,” Amélie said with a polite smile as they entered the store.

Bill Banks was an older man with a limp and an interesting scar along the right side of his face, close to his ear. Contrary to the very fact of local gossip, Rose had never learned what had happened to him to cause such a scar.

“Ah, Mrs. Fitzpatrick.” Banks nodded. “Mrs. Harkness.”

“Mrs. Harkness is, understandably, concerned that people are looking for her brother-in-law,” Amélie prompted, avoiding the usual pleasantries.

Interesting. Amélie was a no nonsense woman, but that direct assault intrigued and worried Rose. What the hell was the other woman hiding?

Making a split decision, Rose stepped forward and lowered her voice. She didn’t have to fake the concern she felt as she looked up at Banks. Really, she could’ve kicked herself—she and Martha should’ve made a decent cover story for a situation like this, but neither had thought _Torchwood_ was looking for them, let alone had somehow found them.

They hadn’t in 1969 when Jack used his real name and had, in fact, stolen a large quantity of money from them. Why and how had they heard about him in the middle of nowhere Kent along the coast in bloody 1936?

Next time they needed to hide like this, they were doing so on Jahoo where they’d be the only beings on the planet.

“Jack’s made some enemies,” Rose said on the fly.

He and John had had a big discussion the other night at dinner over how the government treated Great War Veterans and the high unemployment rates, the failing historic economies such as mines and farms, and Hitler’s ever progressing march toward war and whether the current PM, Stanley Baldwin, was the one to take Britain to war if it came to that.

“He’s very passionate about fighting for others.” Rose lowered her voice even more though as far as she could tell no one else was in the store. “Especially those who can no longer fight for themselves like his fallen comrades and their families. Not everyone in London appreciates what he does and says. If these people are really looking for him,” she hedged, not wanting to give Banks more gossip than necessary and not wanting Torchwood to think they had the right man.

And not really having a cover story so trying to keep it as vague as possible.

Mr. Banks nodded. Rose had no idea how he interpreted her words or what he thought she meant, but the very fact that his face had softened and his eyes had hardened to pinpoints of beautiful blue meant more to her than she realized it possibly could.

“You tell Jack to come round the pub this Saturday,” Banks said in a voice Rose had heard from combat veterans before. They banded together—all for one and one for all no matter what war they fought in. “We’ll sort these people out.”

Rose nodded, not at all reassured and yet somewhat comforted. The watch that held the Doctor’s essence lay heavily against her thigh, carefully hidden in the inside pocket she and Martha had painstakingly sewn into all their clothing. It didn’t call to her, didn’t whisper to her as it sometimes did, but the weight of it reassured her.

“Did they say who they were?”

Banks shook his head. “Just said they were looking for Jack Harkness. Had business with him.”

“What did they look like?”

Banks shrugged, but his gaze assessed her for a long silent moment. Rose couldn’t decide if it was the fact she was a woman who asked or her questions or if she was being honest or if she was remotely trustworthy.

“Pair o’ them,” he said. “Like they didn’t know how to walk without the other there as reinforcement or somethin’. Dressed proper casual—too nice for these parts, the suits too fancy not to be from London. Shifty, always lookin’ round. Carried a strange pad with some sort of wires sticking out.”

If that wasn’t Torchwood, Rose didn’t know what was. _If it’s alien it’s ours_ —who knew what they had in 1936 that they thought could help them detect Jack?

Licking her lips Rose wondered if she should ask about the photo or not. Swallowing hard, she decided she had to. At the moment, she didn’t know what the point was to know a timeframe, but it seemed important.

“Mrs. Fitzpatrick said they had a photo?”

“Yeah.” Banks nodded. “Old, real old. Looked like the bloke in it fought and hard.” He looked at her shrewdly. “Jack didn’t fight the Germans in India, did he?”

Mouth dry, Rose managed, “No. He and my husband were in the trenches…”

Banks nodded and Rose had the feeling he, too, had been in France. Honestly, she had no idea the Germans had been in India; but she supposed it made sense that if they were trying to overthrow the British government they’d promise the Indian Raj their independence.

“That’s where this was taken.” And Banks said it with such authority Rose suddenly knew he’d fought in India sometime, too. That his scar had come from a battle there. “I recognize the land.” He nodded decisively. “Looked, oh, a good 30 years old from the clothing and weapons each man carried.”

“Perhaps it was his father?” Amélie asked. “Does Jack look like his father?”

Grabbing onto the excuse, Rose managed not to look as grateful as she felt. “I don’t know,” she admitted with complete honesty. “I’ve never met their father, but it’s very likely. A lot of sons look like their fathers.”

She refrained from mentioning that Jack looked nothing like John. People saw what they wanted, and if they wanted to see a familial resemblance between John and Jack, so be it.

Rose stopped herself from asking about the others in the photo—she hadn’t realized there were others. Instead she smiled and lied through her teeth. “Thirty years ago Jack was just a boy. And I know for a fact he never left London until the War.”

Banks nodded again. Most people in England hadn’t left their home country until World War I when they enlisted in throngs. And died in droves.

Rose nodded again. “Yes, it could be their father. I know,” she said, making it up as she went along, “he was also in the army. I don’t know where, though.”

“We’ll keep an eye out, Mrs. Harkness,” Banks promised with that same hard glint in his eye. Rose had to wonder what horrors he’d seen and what injustices he’d experienced afterwards.

“Thank you,” she said, the words heartfelt. “If they come back round,” she continued and knew without a doubt Torchwood wouldn’t give up that easily, “send someone to fetch me immediately. I want to meet these people. And I don’t,” she added with a fierceness that didn’t seem to surprise Banks one bit, “want Jack knowing. He’s seen enough.”

Rose smiled at Banks, promised to send Jack and John round to the pub this Saturday, and let Amélie drive them back. The short trip back was silent, though well within the two hours Martha had given her. She tried to breathe easily, but that tightness continued to constrict her lungs.

“I think,” Amélie said as she pulled up the long drive at Broad Oak, “you and I need to have a talk.”

Rose turned inflexible eyes to her and watched her silently for a moment. Mistrust beat through her, but she didn’t know if it was because of what just happened and the possibility of Torchwood or the secrets Amélie clearly held that had the potential to hurt John and Jack.

She’d seen a lot over the years, and Rose was no longer the naïve woman who first traveled with the Doctor. She’d seen things she’d rather not and things she still had nightmares over. And through all that, Rose had learned one very important skill.

Always listen to your gut.

“Yes.” Rose nodded, watching Amélie’s green eyes flit between the drive ahead and her. “Yes, I think it’s time you tell me what secrets have you so scared.”

They didn’t go to the main house for tea, but rather to the cottage. Amélie insisted on the privacy of that which did nothing to settle Rose. Martha made tea and when Rose left Amélie in the front parlor to ‘check’ on Martha, she told her friend a quick version of what happened.

“And you believe her?” Martha whispered. “About not knowing who’s asking after Jack?”

“About that?” Rose tilted her head to the side. “Yes. About everything else? No. But I have no idea what she’s hiding.”

“I’ll stay out of the way,” Martha said as she handed Rose the teacups, which Rose set on the tray. “But I’ll definitely be listening.”

Rose nodded and lifted the tray, returning to the parlor and Amélie who stood by the windows. She set the tray down, poured the tea, and said without preamble, “So. What are you afraid of?”

“Who are those people after Jack?” Amélie countered.

Raising an eyebrow, Rose sipped her tea. “As far as I know, no one is after Jack,” she said calmly. “A picture from 30 years ago?” She shrugged. “Can’t be him. It’s probably his father,” she added indifferently.

“And that story you told Mr. Banks?” Amélie asked, eyeing her carefully.

Not fooled one bit, Rose shrugged again. “Not a story. Every word I told Mr. Banks was the truth.” She set her teacup down and wondered where Martha eavesdropped from. “Now. Who are you hiding from?”

Amélie sighed and silently finished her tea. Apparently whatever bravado or fear that held her in the car from St. Margaret’s back to here had deserted her. Rose could all but see the walls building higher and higher in Amélie’s gaze. Her eyes flicked from Rose to her teacup to the windows and back again.

“You must join me for tea again, Mrs. Harkness,” she said and set the empty cup down. “At the house and perhaps we’ll go for a walk.” Amélie nodded to her and turned for the door. “Good day.”

The door closed behind Amélie with a soft click. “Bugger.”

“She’s tight lipped about something,” Martha agreed and entered the parlor with her own cup of tea. “I don’t think it has anything to do with Torchwood, not from what you told me about what happened in the village.”

“It’s something.” Frustrated, Rose combed her hands through her hair then cursed when her fingers tangled with the many pins that held her 1936 style in place. “An affair? Espionage? Hell, I don’t know.”

“A child she gave up for adoption?” Martha added. “Ran away from home with the family jewels? Definitely something from her past and definitely a secret she’s hiding from her husband. As long as it doesn’t affect Jack or the Doctor I don’t really care.”

“Agreed.” Rose looked at her and in Martha’s gaze saw the same determination she felt. “But why do I feel like it does?”

“Because we’re paranoid.” Martha snorted, then laughed a little lighter. “Paranoid and suspicious.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll see what I can find out from the servants, but they don’t trust me.”

Rose frowned at the implied shun, but Martha didn’t give her a chance to comment.

“You need to get Amélie Fitzpatrick to talk to you.” Martha poked her finger at Rose though they were on opposite sides of the room. “The sooner she trusts you the sooner we can deal with whatever this secret is.”

And though neither said the words, the implication remained heavy between them as it had since they’d run from Silous. _Keep the Doctor and Jack safe._


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Featuring a drunk Jack, an exasperated Martha, and a John who hates not knowing what to do for his brother or what’s wrong with his wife. (Possessive!Doctor)

**Day 15:**  
“Christ, Jack,” John grunted as he pulled his brother upright. “We’ve been here barely two weeks!”

Jack looked blearily up at him. Despite the weight in his gaze— powerless and desperate and grief-laden, Jack gave a sloppy grin. Apology maybe, though John would’ve argued there was really nothing to apologize for. “I can still hear them, ya know,” Jack said.

Surprised with the clarity of his words, considering the deadweight in his arms, John hefted his brother tighter about the waist. He held Jack closer but looked straight ahead. In a quiet voice he acknowledged, “I know.”

“They scream. All the time. In my head.”

“I know, Jack,” John repeated. Quieter still. “I hear them, too.”

The screams and cries and pleas. The shouts and orders and death. Always death. _(I was there at the fall of Arcadia. Someday I might even come to terms with that.)_

“Do you think they’ve forgiven us?” Jack asked.

He didn’t need to ask who ‘they’ were. John knew. Their unit had been virtually wiped out during the spring of 1918. Somehow they’d managed to survive Verdun and Ypres, the Somme, but even with American troops trickling in, the Spring Offensive decimated them.

“I don’t know how we survived,” John whispered, desperate to shake off the memories. His heart raced and he no longer heard the sounds of Broad Oak at night but the screaming whistles of bombs and the panicked cries of the wounded and dying and forgotten.

John sucked in a deep breath, smelled mud and sweat and blood and death. Heard rats scavenging. Jaw clenched, he focused on the blazing lights of the cottage, the unwavering light of home. Of Rose. He blinked hard, willed his heart to slow and his breathing to ease and prayed he’d make it back to the cottage in one piece.

Back to Rose’s arms before he broke down completely.

“Do you think they forgive us?” Jack repeated. “For living?”

Swallowing hard, John shook his head. He hoped so. Wanted it to be so. “I don’t know.” Which wasn’t what Jack wanted to hear, but John had no other answer.

Jack’s head fell to John’s shoulder and John sighed, all anger vanished. Tightness constricted John’s heart and lungs in a feeling that was all too familiar. Not because of Jack’s weight. Never that. John gasped for air, for the fresh cleanness of Kent and horses and the Cliffs.

Gasped for air, desperate, frantic to clear his senses of death and mud and unwashed humanity and hopelessness and the stench of gas that clung to everything.

“I don’t know,” John repeated.

He dragged Jack from the disused barn; the one Jack had apparently found and decided to get drunk in. How many nights had he done that? How many nights had Jack snuck away to drink while John lost himself in Rose? Two bloody weeks and John had thought they were all settling in fine.

Oh, how wrong he was.

Rose only said his name unless he demanded it of her when they were intimate. She looked at him as if she barely recognized him. And he hated that. Hated the uncertainty in her eyes, the hesitation in the heartbeat before her touch. 

Her distance. Her reserve. How she spent more time with Martha than her own husband. How she looked at him as if she wished he were another. Her words played through his mind like a movie reel _(John, I’m not going to leave you)_ but did little to dispel the uncertainty.

It ate at him like a sickness. Until it was all he thought about.

He didn’t think she cheated on him. That wasn’t Rose. Or not the Rose he knew. The one he’d fallen in love with. The one he’d married. The one who smiled at him and kissed him and held his hand and rested her head on his shoulder as they walked and talked and simply were. Together. But jealousy burned through him, licking at the edges of his sanity until John thought he’d do something stupid.

Built and built and John knew it’d explode but every time he approached it, she smiled and wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. And John let her. Let her distract him because he wanted to be distracted. Wanted the passionate woman he loved. Wanted Rose. His Rose. His heart. His life.

And now there was Jack. Drunk Jack who’d promised him he’d try. Promised him he’d cut back on his drink. Promised he’d work hard at this new job, this new life of theirs.

“What happened, Jack?” John asked as they cleared the barn doors, barely opened. He tried to be quiet, to close them softly. No sense rousing the manor to anything amiss. He didn’t know how Fitzpatrick felt about drunkenness, but refused to take the chance on the other man discovering them.

Refused to put his future with Rose in jeopardy.

“Nothing.”

The short, almost perfunctory, answer was quite unlike Jack. In the middle of the overgrown path from the disused barn to his cottage, John stopped and looked down at his brother. Jack was a talkative drunk. Oftentimes disjointed in his drunken talk, but still talkative.

“What,” John said slower now, enunciating each letter, low and hard and just a bit dangerous. Good Lord, was he the only sane one left in this family? “What happened?”

Jack looked up at him, blue eyes sparkling in the starlight. Sad and miserable and not as drunk as John first assumed. Still in his cups, to be sure, but not so blindingly bad as John often found him.

_“What happened?”_

Martha’s sharp voice drifted far more loudly than John would’ve liked. He turned to automatically quiet her, but she was hurrying across the grounds, a confident blur of motion. What had she done before working for Rose? John couldn’t remember. Or had she always been with Rose? And where had this confidence come from?

“He’s drunk.” Martha’s accusatory voice cut through him. As if it was his fault for Jack’s inebriated state.

“Yes.” He snapped but as he did so, realized she kept her voice low and quiet, commanding for all that. Still, he was grateful.

Martha looked at him for several long, long seconds. Even in the half-light, he saw her gaze drift to the barn then back to Jack, over to him. She straightened, shifted that gaze, that authoritative, knowing gaze to him and nodded.

For a beat John saw hesitation in Martha’s gaze. Hesitation and just a bit uncomfortable. He couldn’t understand why—if she was uncomfortable, then why offer? But then she stepped forward and slung Jack’s arm over her shoulder.

“I’ll take care of him.”

John started to protest, but Jack willingly shifted his weight to Martha. Surprised at that move, too stunned to form words, John simply watched.

“Martha,” Jack began.

Martha shushed him. “Don’t.” The word was soft and a little sad. “Just don’t, Jack.”

With a gentleness he hadn’t expected, Martha took Jack’s weight and started once more on the path to the cottage.

“Thank you,” Jack said, just loud enough for John to hear.

“Yeah.” Martha cleared her throat. She may have said something else, but then louder, “I’ll get you settled, Jack.” But it wasn’t said angrily or even as if this were a burden she took on because she was their maid. No. And John didn’t know what to make of it, how she said those words, simple words, but with an understanding that seemed inherent.

John was left in the middle of the lawn, utterly bewildered.

“What the hell just happened?”

Narrowing his gaze, John took a step closer. But considering the way Jack had been with John, he now moved faster, freer with Martha. They were nearly to the cottage.

He hurried after them, only catching up at the door.

“Get the door,” Martha ordered.

Before tonight, had she ever spoken to him in such a calmly confident tone? He didn’t think so and John opened the door automatically to help her maneuver Jack through. Rose stood in the small foyer, clearly waiting for them. He hadn’t told her where he’d gone when he’d left to find Jack. Only that he’d be back shortly.

But she took one look at Jack, glanced at Martha in that infuriatingly private way the two women had since arriving at Broad Oak, and lifted Jack’s arm round her shoulders. Without a word between them, the women moved Jack to his room. John started to follow, but then Rose appeared in the living room as quickly as she’d disappeared.

She opened her mouth to say something, but he caught her eye and she softened. John had no idea what his face looked like to change Rose’s expression so radically, but she crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him.

This sudden and completely voluntary display of affection cracked the wall of insecure anger that had built around him. John pulled her close. Held her maybe a little too tight. Buried his face in the crook of her shoulder. Held her and simply breathed her in.

“Martha’ll take care of him,” she promised. Soft-gentle-tender-soothing. Her fingers smoothed down his back and over his shoulders. Rose leaned back and smiled, an understanding curve of her lips before pressing her mouth to his.

“Martha’ll make sure he’s fine,” Rose added.

And for the first time John wondered if there was more to Martha’s relationship with Jack than he ever could’ve guessed. Had Martha ever treated Jack as she had tonight? Had she ever taken care of him with such sad understanding? He couldn’t remember and why couldn’t he remember?

He remembered she came with Rose, but what happened before remained unimportant. Before Rose didn’t matter.

“Come to bed,” Rose whispered against his mouth, lips against his, breath a teasing brush of arousal. Without waiting for his acquiescence, she wrapped her hand in his (tight and secure and forever, thumb running over the back of his as it always had) and led him upstairs.

Dazed, John let her. The screams of his men dying and of Jack begging him to help and of everyone he couldn’t save echoed ruthlessly in his head. He didn’t hear Rose, but knew she said something by the expectant look in her gaze.

“John,” she said and kissed him.

Slowly she undressed him, fingers warm and alive and eager on his chilled skin. Rose kissed him, deep and longing and as if she drew him out of himself and onto her. Safe and protected and wrapped in her love.

His fears vanished with each touch. Not because he associated sex with love, he wasn’t some fool romantic. But relief and desire and acceptance and being accepted. Because he tasted Rose’s feeling in each press of her lips. Felt her love in the way she touched him and caressed him and held him.

Moaning—her name, his compliance, his surrender to her—John picked her up and carried her to their bed.

He needed to be patient with her and he would be. Could be. Because she was Rose.

 ********  
What the hell had Jack been doing in that barn? The Doctor, or maybe the TARDIS, had specifically chosen that barn because it was mostly rundown and completely abandoned.

Martha had been on her way to look in on Her, let Her know how things were with the family, and see if Sarah Jane had called back or her mum had, or any other messages from the variety of people the Doctor seemed to know.

But then John had appeared carrying Jack and that plan had gone to hell.

And she couldn’t say if seeing the men coming from the direction of the barn and the TARDIS meant anything or she was being overly paranoid. The perception filter should work even on them. Right?

Next trip to the TARDIS, Martha’d ask Her. Just to double check.

No matter what direction she forced her thoughts in—the TARDIS, her mum, Sarah, paranoia, Martha couldn’t seem to stop the slow flush along her skin. Or the way her heart beat just a little faster. Or how she took deeper breaths to breathe in Jack’s scent.

Martha had told Rose she could see to Jack but now regretted it when faced with two arms full of him and a closed bedroom door. Okay, she regretted a lot more—holding Jack so close did nothing for her resolve to keep him at arms length. A resolve that was pathetically inadequate considering how often that resolve crumbled whenever he was around. 

Shuffling him a bit, and honestly not caring if the fool hit his fool head, Martha opened the door. Readjusting her grip on him, she helped him into bed.

He grabbed her hand as she stood and pulled her back down. She swallowed hard, but his fingers curled warmed through hers and with a mental sigh that told her how weak she was around Jack, she let him. The warmth of his hand in hers, the remembered touch of his skin against hers broke down all Martha’s resistance.

“Stay with me?” He asked in that English accent This Jack had that was an exact copy of the Doctor’s/John’s. It still threw her for the first few words.

Looking at him sharply, she narrowed her eyes in the dim light from the hallway. “You’re not drunk?” she accused, when she’d been about to accuse him of being too drunk to stand.

“Not nearly enough,” he confessed.

A broken sound of pain she’d heard from him before when he spoke of his family. Of his lost brother. Of the attacks on that beach that took his childhood away. Martha licked her lips and wished she knew what to do. Say. Help.

It was that tone that both hardened her resolve not to weaken before him—this him—and broke something inside her. Martha didn’t know what to do. She wanted to comfort him. Wanted to be the one he leaned on, to resume their previous relationship.

And she wanted to run as far and fast from him and this time and her conflicting feelings as she could. Damn it, she hadn’t figured out how she felt about him _before_ all this happened! And now, with this different man who was and wasn’t the same man, Martha was pulled in too many directions.

No wonder Rose had broken down a week after they’d got here.

But Rose knew how John felt for her; they were allowed to be happily married. Martha had to sneak around to be with Jack, and frankly she was tired of hiding. But every time he found her, looked at her, smiled at her, held her, she melted.

Because she was so desperate to feel him, not just sex, but the comfort of being held by her lover afterwards.

“Jack,” she began.

“I can still see his face.” Jack breathed in a deep breath and scrubbed his hands down his face. “John’s face when I left him to die.”

“John?” Martha demanded sharply. When had Jack left John to die? Or was this some memory leaking through from before, when they’d just been Jack and the Doctor?

No wait—hadn’t that been the Doctor leaving Jack? Had the memory skewed with this chameleon rewrite?

“Not John,” Jack said as if that cleared anything up.

Oh. _Oh._ He’d spoken of John Hart before, but so briefly Martha didn’t file him in with Jack’s other pain. With family and brother and closing himself off and the weight-wonder-helplessness of two years of lost memories and a name he never wanted to remember.

Jack had only ever said that John Hart had once been his Time Agent partner and lover who had betrayed him and left him for dead.

“What happened?” she whispered. Hand in his, she shifted to fully face him. Open and willing and oh, this was familiar. And it hurt. And Martha hated this back and forth.

She sat on the edge of his bed. Dangerous that. With her feelings wildly unpredictable for This Jack and her need to feel his comforting embrace and her heartbreak over his distance here and now. She brushed a lock of his dark hair off his forehead, reminded of so many other times she’d done so.

When she’d smiled at him and kissed him and they just were. When she didn’t have to hide from the only man, the only person, to ever have shown her how not to hide.

Jack simply took her hand and held it as if she were his only lifeline. His fingers trembled slightly. His breath shook when he breathed in.

What did he remember from his time as This Jack in World War I? And how was it different from Jack’s experiences? Martha hadn’t asked, not either of her Jacks, but vowed to do so. To ask and to listen and to comfort and hold her lover.

This Jack? Or her Jack?

Even to Martha, the line between them had blurred.

For now, she’d listen to this man before her, the broken drunken man who looked up at her with haunted eyes.

“Forgot Rule One: never trust anything he said.”

“What were the other rules?” Martha asked, curious and quiet and compassionate. Then, because she knew the Doctor’s Rule One was usually never wander off (which none of them seemed to listen to) but changed given the situation, asked, “Were there other rules?”

Jack tugged her beside him, and wrapped around her. Not sexual, not like their interactions in this time seemed to be, but the comfort and safety and caring they used to share and Martha craved. Martha’s throat closed with how much she missed that. She wanted it back so badly she let him wrap around her and simply hold her.

One hand rested beneath her head, the other on her hip, pulled her close. She smelled alcohol on his breath, whiskey she thought, but only faintly.

“Always keep him in front of you.” Jack sighed and buried his cold nose against her neck. “Never let him kiss you.”

Martha laughed, soft in the confessional atmosphere. She had to wonder how being lovers with a man you didn’t kiss worked. “And did you follow those rules?”

It hadn’t taken her long to realize she hadn’t cared that Jack was bisexual. Or whatever one called a man who found all creatures across the galaxy beautiful and attractive. Martha had thought it would bother her, but then realized that she wouldn’t be attracted to Jack if he wasn’t who he was. And that was a man who found beauty everywhere. In everyone.

One of the things she loved about him.

And she knew enough about his relationship with John Hart to accept that Jack was the dominant in their relationship. He certainly was in theirs, when it came to sex at least.

But the moment her question left her lips, Martha wondered if This Jack had had any feelings for John Hart. In the TARDIS-revised memories, had they been lovers? Friends? Comrades in arms and nothing more?

Despite the morals of World War I, Martha bet her long-abandoned flat (she should probably give it up and let someone else let it) that Jack, her Jack, had slept his way through the ranks. Somehow that made her fall for him a little more.

“He was selfish and treacherous,” Jack said slowly, his words a whisper along her skin. “But he was a friend.”

“What happened?” Martha whispered.

“He—” Jack swallowed and tightened his hold on her.

Martha sat up, kicked off her shoes, shed her coat and sweater, and lay back down. She faced Jack this time, wrapped her arms back around him and pulled him close. Cupping his face, Martha kissed him, a slow tender press of the lips. She pulled back and smiled gently.

“Tell me.” A plea, a command, a promise.

“He fell in with a gang of thieves,” Jack began.

His voice halted as he said the words, and Martha understood. He told her of robberies of nearby houses and stealing of food and precious belongings, of civilians killed and lies told, of larger thefts—banks and command centers and what she’d now call the black market.

How the TARDIS-altered memories and real ones merged. And how those memories, from what she could tell, had not.

Martha kissed him when he’d run out of words. Heart full, eyes blurry with tears for Her Jack, this one and the other—the man who’d lost his memories, she kissed him. Yes, she knew why Rose had broken down over her feelings for the Doctor and John.

How could she separate the two?

“Jack,” she whimpered against his mouth and lost herself in his touch.

 ******  
Day 16:**  
Another night. Another night of Rose keeping the nightmares at bay. Another night of wrapping himself around her as screams and cries and the dead condemned him. Another night of warmth and love and comfort and the simplest touches _(you need a hand to hold)_ grounding him in Rose’s arms.

John kissed along Rose’s back, slow gentle brushes of his lips down her spine, over the curve of her bum, back up, one vertebra at a time to her shoulder and across the base of her neck. She shivered, tried to say his name, and he smiled. He breathed in deeply of her scent, of orgasm and Rose and _him_.

Beneath him, Rose struggled to catch her breath, utterly pliant in his hands, and a wave of possessive lust surged through him.

The memory of her taste exploded along his senses, ripe and crisp and so very addictive. He wanted to crawl down her body and taste her again, the richness of her juices, the lushness of her orgasm. John thought he could spend the next forever tasting her orgasm and never catalog every bit of her.

“Rose?” he asked, mouth gliding along her the top of her back, down her arm, fingers twining with hers.

“Hmm?” she grunted, fingers clenching around his.

John laughed, low and dark and kissed her fingertips, the ring he’d given her as a symbol of their bond, felt her shudder again. Slid his mouth up her arms, around her biceps _(I promise to love you, Rose Tyler. As your husband, I vow to you that I shall protect you from all harm; that I shall love and respect you and hold you in the highest esteem. I shall embrace you until the end.)_

His heart pounded far too fast as if it wasn’t quite big enough to hold in all he felt for this amazing woman beneath him. Body humming from his orgasm, mind pulsing from the unbelievable link he shared with Rose, John wanted nothing more than to spend the next forever curled around each other in their bed.

_(The room was cold and empty. The lights hurt his eyes and he closed them against the harshness of a room that no longer held her. No longer was theirs. He looked around, the unmade bed where he’d made love to her just that morning; her clothes scattered around the floor; the knickknacks she’d picked up everyplace they’d visited.)_

John shivered, suddenly impossibly cold, and pulled Rose closer.

 _(The room still smelled of her, of them, and he wrapped that scent around him and howled. Turned the bed over, threw shoes and clothes and books and whatever happened to be in reach. Precious trinkets and rare parts and it didn’t matter because she wasn’t there. And who cared about items and things and objects? Who cared when_ she wasn’t there _? Screamed out and cried out and reached for her but she was gone. She was…just gone.)_

Loneliness and anger and a feeling of such utter bereavement it loomed like blackness swamped him but then Rose moved. She moved, turned her head, eyes caught his and she reached out and that touch, the way her hand fit so very perfectly with his, grounded him.

He tenderly turned her, one hand still clasping hers, until she pressed against him with a sigh. Her legs automatically tangling with his, her arm reaching around to pull him close, her head a perfect fit against his shoulder.

“What are your plans for today?” He whispered against her hair, afraid to speak too loud in case it shattered the spell wrapped around them and he woke. Woke to that bleak world of loneliness and emptiness and barren purposelessness.

“Gardening,” Rose murmured, her lips brushing the underside of his jaw. Her arms wrapped around him and she rested her head on his chest. “Martha and I are still working on the garden.”

He hummed against the top of her head and tightened his arms around her. John leaned against the headboard and pulled her even closer. Never close enough, always wanting more. Rose curled around him was the best way to spend the hour before he needed to rise and ready himself for work.

The best way to spend forever.

Rose sighed, her fingers caressing his hip, gently up his side, down to the top of his thigh. He felt her breathing even out but somehow knew she didn’t sleep. John shifted her leg higher over his and closed his eyes, one hand blindly reaching for the blankets to keep her warm.

“I love you,” he said quietly, settling the blanket over them. She was so much more open last night; though he still held his breath that she return the words, John knew how she felt. 

(Hoped and wished and prayed to deities he didn’t really believe in _(I believe in her)_ and after all that, still wanted to hear the words. He never knew how much power those words had until he needed to hear them.)

Rose hummed and kissed his chest, arm tightening around him, fingers squeezing his. She drew in a deep breath, and John’s heart skipped a beat. But she didn’t return the words. Didn’t say them as she had so many times every day before they’d arrived at Broad Oak.

She kissed his chest and held him tighter but she didn’t say the words that were suddenly the most important ones he ever needed to hear.

It unsettled John, though he knew how she felt. He did. Thought he did. Hoped he did. No, he did—it was obvious in every kiss. Palpable in each touch. Recognizable in her smile.

A part of him, his heart, his soul, his entire being, wanted to hear the words. Needed to.

Maybe tomorrow.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Torchwood, guesses, and Rose and John do some talking with some NSFW things under the stars. (Possessive!Doctor) Nearly finished! This story will go to Chapter 16 for those wondering. :)

**Day 20:**  
“Jack hasn’t said anything about his meetings with Bill Banks at the pub,” Martha said as they knelt in the garden.

“And John still refuses to join him,” Rose admitted. “I don’t know if it’s because he wants to spend time with me or doesn’t want to relive his memories of the War.”

Rose thought it a combination of both—running from the past? Oh, that was so the Doctor.

“Any word about Torchwood?” Martha asked.

“No, but I know they haven’t given up.” Rose slammed her spade into the dirt much harder than necessary. “They never give up.”

It’d been a week since Mrs. Michaels, the cook, had raced from St. Margaret’s to Broad Oak with warnings about mysterious men asking after Jack. In that time, Rose had suffered through 7 teas with Amélie. And had learned precisely nothing.

Nothing more about who the other woman feared or why or how those mysterious people might affect them, or even the whereabouts of the mysterious Torchwood people who seemed to have vanished. Vanished after one round of questions?

Not bloody likely.

Frustrated, Rose had nonetheless continued to take tea with Amélie and use the time to ask her questions, each one more carefully disguised than the last.

One day Amélie would answer. Either that or one day Rose would flip and threaten the other woman until she had her answers. Frankly, she was leaning toward the latter.

“You can’t change anything.” Martha’s quiet words startled Rose and she looked across the wet ground at her friend. “I don’t know about timelines and causality whatever’s and casual nexus…es?” Martha frowned at the plural and Rose laughed.

“Nexii?” Rose shrugged. “I’m not sure about that one, sorry.”

“Whatever.” Martha waved it off with a quick grin. “But I do know you can’t change it. Whatever Torchwood did in 1936 has to be done for 2006 to have happened.”

Scowling, Rose nodded. “I know.” She frowned when Martha gave her a disbelieving look. “I do know!” she defended. “But…”

“Rose,” Martha said warningly.

“I know,” she conceded in a small voice. Tired and angry and annoyed and—why, once, just once could they not have a moment when it was just them?

And wasn’t that unfair—they had plenty of those moments. Moments when she and the Doctor made love beneath sparling pink waterfalls. Where she and Martha had laughed and snapped pictures and took videos as they’d watched their men muddy and wet and laughing as they tried to move a very stubborn pig-like creature to help a farming family.

Where she and the Doctor talked about a future, their future, and children and the soft breaths between heartsbeats where it was just the two of them.

Where she had her lover and husband and her family. And if she missed her mum and Mickey and Pete and Jake, at least Rose knew they were happy and they knew she’d made it back to the Doctor.

Though no one seemed to have any idea about the stars going out. Maybe it had stopped? She refused, with the certainty of all her once naïve youth, to think that world was destroyed. Her loved ones were safe—she firmly believed that.

And they’d figure out what was going on and the four of them would stop it or fix it or undo it.

“And I won’t do anything,” she swore, voice thick with tears and regrets and memories. “I won’t do anything to change a thing. I don’t want to destroy the universe because I wanted a little more time with the Doctor.”

She cleared her throat and pressed her hands into the dirt, letting the cold ground seep through her gloves. Pressed harder to stop the emotions—fear and hope and love and need and forever—from boiling over. Boiling over and tainting her, clouding her vision with greed and avarice.

Because Rose was terrified she’d do just that.

It gripped her in its icy fingers and tempted her. She was terrified that, despite her words to the contrary about better living through futuristic medicine and living out her human life however long they may extend it, she’d do whatever it took to stay with him.

Forever.

 _(There's another thing the TARDIS could do. It could take us away. We could leave. Let history take its course. We go to Marbella in 1989._ Rose had thought of that, she had. The thought had lasted precisely as long as it’d taken to form before she’d dismissed it. _Yeah, but you'd never do that._ And neither would she. If there was even a chance they could do this, she’d stay with him. She’d always stay with him. _No, but you could ask. Never even occurred to you, did it?_ It never occurred to her to leave him. No. It hadn’t. _Well, I'm just too good._ )

She never did figure out what was so special about Marbella in 1989. 

“Torchwood.” Rose stopped, cleared her throat, choked down her memories and that oh so human desperation to live forever. To live with the Doctor forever. To have her lover and her love and their life forever.

“Torchwood hasn’t given up.” Rose took a deep breath, felt Martha’s comforting hand on her shoulder, a slight touch of understanding. If anyone understood, Rose knew it was Martha. Jack’s lifespan outlasted even the Doctor’s.

At least they’d have each other.

“They never do,” Rose whispered, brokenly. “If Torchwood thinks this is their Jack Harkness, they’ll keep at it until they kill him and realize this him can really die. And oops! We were mistaken. So sorry.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Martha swore harshly. Rose jerked her gaze up at the unforgiving tone. Martha’s gaze was cold and determined and _angry_. “I won’t.”

She took Martha’s hand from her shoulder, where her fingers had tightened, and squeezed hard. Understanding and acknowledgement and yes, we’re in this together.

“I know.” Then deliberately changing the subject, Rose asked, “Has Jack been back to the barn?”

“No,” Martha sighed. Cleared her throat and said in a clearer voice, “Well, not that I can tell. He’s stopped that now, but I know he hasn’t stopped drinking. I can smell it on him…”

Martha trailed off and Rose wanted to desperately break the atmosphere of hopelessness and anger and helplessness with a joke about what Martha and Jack had been up to. To joke about their sex lives like they used to when they did their Omicron Yoga before the four of them had breakfast together.

It died, unborn, on her lips.

“He doesn’t know about the TARDIS,” Martha added softly.

“The perception filter should work on them both,” Rose agreed.

“I did ask Her yesterday,” Martha said. “She seemed to agree that no one has discovered Her. I tried looking at the sensors, but She barely had any power. I don’t think the hunters found us.” Martha’s jaw clenched. “Not yet.”

Not yet. 

Winston suddenly appeared and pawed at the trench Rose had just dug. It took three times as long to plant their seeds with Winston “helping”. He wanted to play with the spade and the small rakes and the seed bags and bulbs. Then he wanted to dig up already planted seeds. If they had a garden come spring, Rose would be surprised.

“Winston,” Martha snapped. Then picked him up and cuddled him. Rose grinned and hurried to re-dig her trench before their cat stopped purring at the attention Martha gave him and realized what had happened.

“How is She?” Rose asked, bringing the conversation back to the TARDIS. “I haven’t been able to sneak away to visit Her.”

Not between tea with Amélie and not letting John’s suspicions come between them. Rose missed the old girl. Missed Her soothing hum and tinkling laugh. Her very presence.

“I think She’s slipping,” Martha admitted in a dark, tired voice. “She’s even dimmer and quieter than before. I think She misses us.”

“The longer the Doctor’s away from Her, the longer he’s not a Time Lord, the worse She’ll get.” Rose signed, her heart twisting at the thought of the beloved ship slowly wasting away. Not dying. She refused to allow that.

Only 69 days to go.

Martha suddenly stood, Winston still purring contentedly in her arms. “I think it’s nearly time for your tea with Amélie.”

Rose scowled. Martha grinned wickedly. Neither emotion dispelled the air of sadness and despondency wrapping around them.

“What do you do while I sit prettily in the main parlor and listen to insipid local gossip?” Rose asked, and resigned herself to going.

“Make good with Mrs. Michaels.” Martha shrugged but Rose easily saw the tension in her shoulders, bracketing her mouth. “I figure it’s the best way to keep tabs on what’s really happening in the village and to keep her on our good side. If she changes her story about Jack, we’ll never be rid of Torchwood.”

“You’re not wrong,” Rose sighed and held the door open for Martha.

 ******  
Day 23:**  
It was cold, a crisp March night that burned through her lungs and Rose inhaled deeply of the sharp scents.

A week ago Hitler marched into the Rhineland. The news spread from paper to paper faster than wildfire. It was the talk of the ranch—it was the talk of everyone. Rose tried not to get involved in any of the conversations; she let others talk of their fears of invasion or their dismissiveness about Hitler and how nothing Germany did could ever touch Britain.

She bit her tongue and schooled her features and tried not to accidently slip and say something that’d either make people think her a spy or give them information about the future they definitely shouldn’t have.

Sarah Jane hadn’t said what happened to the people of St. Margaret’s after the war, only that the village seemed to have returned to its normal routine. With the addition of Sir Peter Ustinov, of course. Still, Rose knew that when Germany invaded Poland in another 3 years’ time, droves of civilians enlisted.

Taking a deep breath of the late winter night, she pushed all that aside. Right now she and Martha needed to make sure the four of them—and the rest of the area—survived hiding from the alien hunters long enough to survive Torchwood. And whatever Amélie was hiding. Then they could worry about World War II.

“Walk with me,” Rose said after dinner.

John had finished with the horses and come directly home as he normally did.

After they’d found Jack drunk in the barn, Martha had been afraid to leave him to his own devices. But, and Rose understood this all too well, Martha also didn’t want to leave herself open to heartbreak. However, since then they hadn’t needed to leave plates of dinner out for Jack. He ate dinner with the rest of them, even if he did sneak back out afterwards or head to the pub in St. Margaret’s.

Martha said he’d made friends with the locals, with Bill Banks and some pub mates. But neither woman managed to get a straight answer from him and John refused to go down the pub to check up on his brother.

The fact Jack made friends didn’t surprised Rose. The fact John didn’t want to spend time away from her didn’t surprise Rose, either. But it did worry her. How were they supposed to keep an eye on Jack if he wasn’t around to keep an eye on?

With the threat of the hunters, and now Touchwood, they needed to stick together even more.

She’d promised Martha she’d speak to John about Jack’s behavior. Rose doubted John wanted to speak about Jack.

Because John was a totally different story—the moment he was free, he came to her. Pulled her close and simply breathed her in. As if he couldn’t believe she was there. As if he feared she wouldn’t be.

Now, Rose slipped her fingers between his and tugged him out of the cottage. He stiffened beside her for less than a heartbeat then held her hand tighter. Her head automatically leaned against his arm. John made a strangled sound she couldn’t interpret. Didn’t want to.

She’d been terrified of showing him too much affection, despite her love for him (the Doctor and John and both of them and each of them and they were now so wrapped up in her heart, Rose wasn’t sure there was a separation or could be a separation between the personalities.) But since the night with Jack’s drunkenness and John’s insecurities, Rose had made a conscious effort to be more open, outside the bedroom, with her love of this impossible man.

Tonight, she thought she’d finally succeeded.

Rose sighed at the familiar contact, the well-known touch. John relaxed and his fingers squeezed hers and she felt his lips just brush against her temple. So familiar, so easy, so common and yet Rose never wanted to grow so accustomed to this—this comfortable touching that had been between them almost since the beginning.

She looked at the sky, the constellations the Doctor had outlined for her so long ago and had a sudden urge to lay on the ground, curled into her husband, and watch the sky.

“It’s a good night for it,” John said as if he read her mind.

Maybe he could—their bond still shone brightly whenever they were intimate. Occasionally, very occasionally, Rose thought she caught a glimpse of what he was thinking. And no matter how human John was, she firmly believed he still retained the Doctor’s telepathy. 

Rose looked from the sky, with its new moon and inky blackness, to him. “I’ll fetch a blanket.”

She raced into the deserted house and grabbed a pair of heavy blankets from the settee before heading back out to where John stood. Hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders rigid, body poised to move at a moment’s word. He watched her those few minutes she’d gone from his side—eyes shadowed in the darkness, but so focused she didn’t need to see them to know.

That moment of fear—out of sight, out of reach—then the easing of that iron banding round the chest, the deep breath, palms itchy with needed to touch its mate.

Oh yes. She slipped her hand back into John’s, felt his fingers squeeze hers—hard, harder for a beat, a slight relaxing at the solidness of the touch. John pulled her closer, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, held her, breathed her in.

She didn’t say anything around the lump of understanding and love and fear-hope-touch-don’t leave not even for a second constricting her throat. His lips grazed the side of her neck, just a brush, lips somehow skipping over the chain to her pendant.

Rose reached up and cupped his cheek, watched him in the light of the stars. He looked so exposed—everything he was open to her right then. It twisted something deep inside Rose, that knowledge she was responsible for his unguarded moment of powerlessness (and hope and yearning and longing and fear). That he doubted her because she’d been too afraid, too terrified, of risking her heart and falling in love with a man not _her_ Doctor.

John was her Doctor. Always.

“Do you like it here, John?” she asked, surprised at the question.

“I like anywhere you’re with me,” John said in that voice that was the Doctor’s just before he kissed her. When he was feeling especially vulnerable and broken and defenseless. When he needed that reassurance and comfort to push the desolate darkness back.

Rose wondered what happened, what could possibly have happened at _a horse farm in Kent_ , and looked up at him. “What’s wrong?”

His jaw tightened and even in the faint light from the stars, Rose saw the bleakness in his gaze. He stopped, pulled her to him, and wrapped his arms around her. She felt him tense again, as if about to speak, but then he released a breath instead, lips pressed to the top of her head.

“John,” she began.

But his arms wrapped around her and if possible, he held her closer. “Don’t—”

Rose didn’t move from his arms and waited, but he just held her tight, tighter, mouth pressed to her hair, heart galloping beneath her ear. “This is a good spot,” Rose eventually whispered. 

For a heartbeat, his arms went rigid around her then she felt him shift. John took the blankets from her and spread one on the ground a dozen meters or so from the wood line. Tugging her down, he spread the second blanket over them and held her.

Rose breathed deeply of the fresh winter night and that, combined with his scent, eased her heart a little. She wiggled a bit until she rested her head on his shoulder, gaze on the sky.

“Don’t what?” she asked, voice hushed in the night. Not because she worried that others might walk by, they tended to stay indoors she’d noticed. Because she didn’t want to scare him off.

“Are you happy here?” John asked instead, repeating her question.

She shifted to take his hand, tracing her fingers over the ring he wore. John’s arm curled around her, settled just beneath her breasts, fingers splayed. He never took his ring off, not even when working; something in Rose warmed and expanded at that realization.

“Are you?” Tension vibrated along his arm, his fingers, the shoulder beneath her head.

“I’m happy with you,” Rose finally whispered, honest and open and bared before him.

For a long, silent heartbeat, he said nothing. The tension remained, like fragile glass in the instant before shattering. Then John turned, rolled over to blanket her body with his. Rose couldn’t see his gaze clearly in the night, but knew him so, so well.

She raised her hand, brushed her fingers through his hair—flat from bathing and so very soft. Her fingers traced along his sideburns, down either side of his face, across his jaw. Even in the darkness, Rose knew where his freckles were and traced random patterns over his cheek and across his nose.

“I’m always happy with you,” she told him.

His lowered his head to hers, and Rose met him halfway. Suddenly eager to taste him, to feel the press of his lips to hers, how his tongue swept over the bottom of her teeth before exploring her mouth as if it was the first time he tasted her. One chilly hand slipped beneath her blouse, uncaring of the buttons on the material.

She arched into him, moaned against his mouth, tried to find the button to his trousers. John moved fast, competent but with a desperation that worried her. Then his other hand found her sex and her knickerless state, and he paused.

“Blimey, Rose,” he muttered against her mouth. “Still wet for me, my heart. Good.”

Breathless, Rose chuckled against his lips. She tried to move her hips against his fingers, but he held her immobile. “I’m always wet for you.”

“And the knickers?” John removed his fingers from her, and Rose whimpered at the loss of contact.

He brought his fingers to his mouth, slowly licked the taste of her and Rose’s body flushed with arousal. Her fingers clenched on the waistband of his trousers and forgot how to work. With impatient movements, he brushed her fingers away and quickly opened his trousers, shoving them over lean hips.

“I like the way the cold air feels on me,” Rose admitted then blushed at her admission. She grinned cheekily up at him despite her embarrassment. “And I was hoping you’d make love to me outside. Didn’t want them in the way.”

John groaned, his long fingers curled around her waist, strong and impatient, and despite the faint pain Rose shivered at the feel. He lifted her hips, waited as she locked her legs around him, and in one hard thrust entered her.

She let out a keen of pleasure, which turned into a gasp when he stalled, fingers pressing into her hips.

“What have I told you, my heart?” John demanded, the fingers of one hand now brushing over her clit like fairies dancing. Light and soft and just enough to build her orgasm into a tight coil. His other hand held her immobile.

Rose shifted, looked up at him. She didn’t care they were on the grounds of the manor beneath a sparkling starlit sky. She’d wanted him since he left that morning.

She wanted the comfort of making love with him. Yes, her body had been aroused and her core ached for just this feel, for the unutterable tenderness and wholeness of having John’s cock thick and pulsing inside her. But more, it was the connection and completion and the feel of him surrounding her.

The love when he looked at her and the flair of their bond on the edges of her awareness and the all-enveloping inclusiveness that making love to this mad man she’d run away with gave her. As if it were only them; this connection between them that joined more completely than anything else in the universe.

She’d never get enough of him.

“Not a sound.” John’s voice drifted darkly along her skin, flushed in the cold night. “Keep your eyes open, my heart,” he commanded and she did so.

Before she could say anything more or even move, his hands framed her face and his eyes bore into hers with that darkly intense look of longing and need. His mouth touched hers, tentative as if he truly was terrified she’d disappear.

Consuming. Devouring. Mouth on hers, tongue sweeping along hers, more and yes and whispered pleas of _stay_. And still he kissed her, kissed her as if she was his sole lifeline.

“Rose,” he said against her lips, her jaw, her throat. “My heart.”

“Yes,” she breathed against the side of his neck, the barest of hums.

She held him close and arched into his touch. Opened her mouth to his and her body to his and gave him everything she was. Took him inside her and offered him the comfort of her love and her body and the reassurance of their bond.

“Come for me, my Rose.” John’s words pounded along her skin as he pounded frantically into her body. “Come for me, my heart.”

He pressed his forehead to hers, brushed his fingers along her temples as if he remembered the touch from another lifetime.

The bright flash of their bond tipped her over the edge, surprising Rose. She cried out, silent as he’d instructed, teeth sinking into his shoulder, nails digging into the small of his back, limbs tightening around him as she ground against the fingers still on her clit.

“Yes.” The word was no more than a grunt against her shoulder, and he moved faster and she held him even closer. “Yes. Rose. My Rose.”

He came then, head thrown back and muscles straining and so breathtaking as he did so Rose pulled him down for a kiss.

“Mine,” he mumbled into her mouth. “Don’t leave me. My heart, don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”

Rose held him for another moment, wished for his skin against hers, preferred that after they’d made love, the quiet moments of skin to skin and fingers soft and gentle.

“Never,” she vowed.

Still breathing heavy, though Rose felt him softening within her, John rolled them until she lay on his chest. Eventually she opened her eyes and looked down at him, studied him closely. He seemed more relaxed now, calmer.

Eyes closed, his hand brushed down her hair and Rose wondered for only a moment what a mess it was. And then didn’t care. She pressed her lips against the corner of his mouth and smiled when he turned just enough to kiss her properly.

Slightly chilled now, Rose searched for the blanket but couldn’t reach it from where she was, wrapped in John’s arms, head on his chest. He must’ve sensed what she wanted, because he reached over and snagged the blanket, draping it over them, eyes still closed, hand now cupping the nape of her neck.

She pressed her lips to the side of his neck. “I love you.”

 ******  
Day 25:**  
After a morning of Omicron Yoga and breakfast of winter vegetables and sausage, they finally had a chance to visit the TARDIS.

After one too many suspicious looks about the amount of money Martha spent when she went to the village for supplies, Martha had used Rose’s next tea with Amélie to let their ‘secret’ spill.

“Oh, Mrs. Harkness comes from money,” Martha had confided to Mrs. Michaels. “Certainly nothing like Broad Oak, but her father owns a big ah, business in London.”

She had no idea if being in the security business was a legit one in post-Great War England, or if it was one that would allow them the upwardly mobile status they seemed to need in Kent. But Martha sure as hell wasn’t mentioning Torchwood; and health drinks, what Rose had said Pete Tyler had sold in the other universe, wouldn’t have made much of an impression.

Plus, what did she know? She was only the black maid to a well-to-do family. And Martha planned to use these people’s prejudices to their advantage.

“Still sluggish?” Martha asked now as she and Rose walked across the lawn, surreptitiously looking for people as they made their way to the barn.

“A bit,” Rose admitted. She rolled her head from side to side and stretched her back. “Nothing like before though, after the treatments. I think it’s just stress.”

“I’ll grab some equipment,” Martha promised. She patted her leather messenger bag, the bigger on the inside one she’d had the Doctor create (Martha had no idea how he’d done that but did it really matter?) before he’d been Chameleon-ed, but kept her gaze on Rose. “And maybe that first aid kit the Doctor keeps in the console room.”

“All right.” Rose nodded. “Anything else we need?”

Eyeing her friend critically, Martha chewed her lip as she debated how to ask. Finally she said straightforwardly, “Your medical charts.”

Rose jerked her gaze from the barn to her and Martha tried to smile reassuringly.

“I just want to study them while we’re here. I know the Doctor said you were fine, but I need to know what’s happening while he’s not here.” Martha took a deep breath and grinned. “Besides, if I’m playing the part of the midwife, I need to brush up, right?”

Rose sighed, the tension visibly leaving her shoulders. “Right.” She laughed a little and nodded. “You’ll be amazing, Martha.”

“Damn right I will be!” Martha laughed.

It sounded hollow to her own ears. Because Rose wasn’t all right. She was always tired and needed to nap in the middle of the day. Martha didn’t think Rose was pregnant; the changes the Doctor had made to her DNA had been so a human could carry a Time Lord baby.

She wasn’t absolutely positive, but Martha figured that meant Rose could no longer carry a fully human baby. Still, just in case, it didn’t hurt to be certain. She’d just have to be careful about the tests she wanted to run—no sense in scaring Rose when she might not have to.

Because Martha didn’t know what any of them would do if Rose ended up pregnant with John Harkness’s fully human child.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amélie is more than a little curious about Rose and John. But it’s her secrets that finally come out. (Additional notes at the end of this chapter)

**Day 32**  
“What are you and Martha doing today?” John asked. He continued running his hand down Rose’s spine, a light caress that made her hum in sleepy approval more than arousal. His other hand lay behind his head propping it up just enough to watch her.

He loved watching her. Awake, asleep, talking to Martha, walking along the path from the cottage to the paddock, petting Winston. It didn’t matter. He loved every second. Treasured every image. Cherished every moment.

John also liked knowing what she was doing while he was with the horses. Usually it was the same—gardening or going to St. Margaret’s for food, or taking a walk along the Cliffs. He didn’t care. He’d debated long and hard with himself and hated to admit it was a bit of control, the need to know.

Not that he’d ever stop Rose from doing something, at least he hoped not. He just wanted to know. They ate dinner with Jack and Martha where talk revolved around Broad Oak and the farm’s gossip. Their evenings were spent looking at the stars and making love. Not a lot of talk about their day.

But John craved knowing what Rose did, how she spent her time without him. He saw her most days for lunch when she and Martha brought a basket, but again—no privacy.

Rose picked her head off his chest and frowned in concentration for a heartbeat. He had a flash of memory, but couldn’t place it.

( _Not a morning person, eh?_ He asked, eyeing her carefully as if she were a wild beastie about to attack him. _There’s coffee and tea in the galley._ Rose watched him through half-closed eyes, despite the fact she’d clearly showered and dressed. She didn’t nod, didn’t verbally acknowledge him in any way. She may have grunted, but the TARDIS didn’t translate. He grinned and folded his arms over his chest, his leather jacket creaking slightly with the movement.)

John shook off the images. He tried to place the setting, the strange backlight, the soothing-tempting-omniscient hum. As quickly as the memory appeared, it vanished and he was in their bed, his lovely naked wife stretched out atop him.

“Amélie and I are going to monthly tea in the village.” Rose frowned and returned her head to his chest, where she’d spent most of the last half hour or so drifting in a light doze. She’d never be a morning person and John didn’t mind one bit.

While he craved hearing Rose’s cries of passion, her whimper of need; feel her body climax hard against his mouth and fingers, against his body, John quite liked simply cuddling with her, too. Rose’s warm body curled around his. It was chilly in the room, even under the blankets and quilts. They’d gone to bed naked, and while he’d wanted to wake Rose with his hands and mouth, she seemed overly tired.

They’d been on Broad Oak for a little over a month, and while he didn’t want to get his hopes up too high, or even voice those hopes, John desperately wished Rose was pregnant. It would explain her tiredness, at least. And a child was something both of them desired.

But for now, however, John remained quiet. Yes, lying in bed, Rose’s head on his chest, her lips pressed just over his heart was an excellent way to spend the hour before he needed to get ready for work.

“I won’t be here for lunch,” she added in a mumble.

John frowned but said nothing. He already knew he was a selfish man who wanted to spend every second with Rose. Verbalizing that, with his disappointment over not seeing her for lunch, seemed petty.

“I’ll miss you,” he whispered into her hair. “But will somehow manage to survive.”

He’d probably spend the time working with Phellen. The horse had finally come round to seeing John as the alpha and the wee beastie was finally showing his performance capabilities.

Rose raised her head and smiled, a soft, sleepy one that tugged his heart. She ran a hand down his face, nails scratching through his stubble. Her thumb traced his lower lip and he pressed a kiss to the pad of it.

“I love you,” Rose said and kissed him. Just once, a gentle press of her lips to his, before her head returned to his chest.

John’s heart flipped in his chest. If she said it every hour for every day for the rest of their lives, he’d never tire of it. Never tire of hearing it, those soft syllables falling off her tongue to wrap around him as surely and securely as her arms.

He opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out. His throat constricted with emotion, and he tightened his arms around his wife.

She was asleep; he didn’t need to look to know she’d fallen back asleep. John pressed his lips to the top of her head, long, hard, struggling to get himself under control. He closed his eyes, but despite knowing he still had just over an hour before he needed to get up and get ready for another day at the stables, he couldn’t fall back to sleep.

“I love you, too, Rose. My heart. Forever.”

 ********  
Rose allowed Amélie to drive them to the village. She let the other woman talk about dances and fairs and summer gardens and some sort of baking club Rose wanted nothing to do with.

“Martha is the baker,” Rose said and watched the other woman’s reaction carefully. “I’ll have to pry a piece of her banana-banana bread from John’s hands and let you try it. I’m sure it’s award worthy.”

Amélie said nothing to that and Rose bit her tongue. It was getting harder and harder to do so, but she reasoned they had slightly less than 2 months to go, stuck here _(Yeah, but stuck with you, that’s not so bad)_ before it didn’t matter what Amélie or anyone else thought about them.

Then Rose allowed Amélie to introduce her to several of the more well-off ladies of the village during what was clearly some sort of monthly tea. Fantastic. A dozen women talking about clubs and gardens and yes, there it was…hints of the coming war.

Rose bit her tongue. Again. She refused to be drawn into a discussion about the war, terrified she’d slip up and say something about Hitler or Britain’s involvement or the Blitz.

She was being unfair.

Just because sitting around and talking about sewing and babies and baking wasn’t her cup of tea didn’t mean anything. It might’ve been once—if she’d never met the Doctor, Rose had no doubts that she and her childhood friends might be sitting around a pub talking about their babies and pregnancies and dead-end jobs and life on the estate.

Rose took a deep breath and pushed all that away. She used to be so good at fitting in, at accepting other cultures. What happened? A mere month here and she was a bitter, crabby woman who pouted in the corner like a 2 year old.

Taking a moment, she sipped her tea. Really, these women were very nice and several of them had daughters off to university and were quite proud of them as they enthusiastically talked of their accomplishments.

Rose steered the conversation onto those topics and the changing mores of the times.

“How long have you and John been married?” Gloria, the hostess, asked. Her light blue eyes twinkled and Rose repressed a sigh.

Instead she smiled. Her fingers brushed over the marriage pendant safely hidden beneath her high-collared sweater. She had no idea what John thought the backstory between them was. When, oh when, was she going to learn to have a cover story ready?

“I was working for my dad,” Rose said carefully. She looked at Gloria, not unaware of the other ladies eyes on her. “There was a problem in the basement of the building. A gas line rupture. John saved me; he grabbed my hand and told me to run.”

Rose smiled at the memory, not of gas line ruptures but of Autons and the first word the Doctor had ever spoken to her. Despite her disbelief at the time, and the danger, it was one of her best memories. Because it brought her and the Doctor together.

“We ran and he pulled me out of the building before it exploded.”

Not entirely a lie and Rose made a mental note to tell Martha the story and ask John how he thought they’d met. She had a suspicion it’d be something very similar, but still…always good to have everyone’s stories match up.

Apparently Martha’s story about Pete Tyler’s business in London had spread, because the next question was about why John hadn’t gone into the family business.

“He wanted to get out of London,” Rose said and sipped her tea. It was her third cup; she’d need the loo before long at this rate. Maybe it was time to stop using the teacup as a distraction. “Make his own way. John is really good with horses,” she added, assuming he was.

She hadn’t heard anything to the contrary. Would they still have a place here if he wasn’t? Probably not.

“And what about Jack?” one of the ladies, Maryanne, Rose thought, asked.

“What about him?” Rose asked but already knew where the question led.

“Is he single?” Maryanne asked. “I understand he’s made friends with Mr. Banks and his ilk at the pub.”

Was that a hint of distaste there? Rose couldn’t be sure, and that surprised her. Weren’t Great War Vets treated reverently? Was there something more going on?

“He’s…” definitely not single, but Rose had no idea how to say that without bringing Martha into it. And she had a feeling she already knew how these people viewed Martha. “Mourning,” she finally decided. “Jack has had a bad time of it lately.”

She sighed and shook her head, dropping her eyes to her teacup. “A bad time of it,” she repeated for lack of anything else to offer.

The ladies gave murmurs of sympathy, but didn’t ask in the way of an older generation. She had a feeling the 21st century friends she’d had growing up, wouldn’t be so resistant to asking.

Rose was unsurprised her personal life was the main topic of conversation at monthly tea. She was the newbie after all, and people were always curious. Fielding a few more questions about John, her life in London, and children, Rose turned the conversation back to the other women and _their_ children.

This, she thought as they said their goodbyes a couple hours later, this was why she traveled. To hear about the changes these women and their daughters were making. About the subtle things they did so that by the time she was born she could take her freedoms for granted.

Happy in a way she hadn’t been since running from Silous, Rose hummed a tune she couldn’t remember the name of as they returned to the car.

“Did John romance you?” Amélie asked. “He saved your life, but what was he doing in the basement of your father’s building?”

Rose wondered what this had to do with anything, let alone the afternoon that had turned very pleasant indeed. Careful, she eyed Amélie. Her fingers once again brushed the hidden pendant. When she saw Amélie’s eyes follow the movement, Rose curled her fingers onto her lap.

“He worked there,” Rose said vaguely. “Did he romance me?” she shrugged. Did going to watch the Earth’s final hours count as romance? Probably. To the Doctor, at least. And they’d had chips afterwards—their first date.

“With flowers or trinkets or poetry?” Amélie pressed.

“Flowers?” Rose frowned, totally bewildered as to where this was going.

The Doctor had never given her a bouquet of flowers, per se. He did give her gardens—every garden she wanted to see any time she wanted to see them. That first time after Charles Dickens and Gelth and _I'm so glad I met you_ he’d taken her to some planet she didn’t remember the name of and showed her a meadow of flowers from a purple and red and brown plateau as the sun rose.

Smiling Rose nodded. “John loves to read. Dickens, Shakespeare, esoteric poets I’ve never heard of.” She shifted on the seat again. He often recited poetry or lines from books as he made love to her, the words a brush of eroticism in and of themselves, his breath a caress as he kissed her. “But that’s not how he romanced me. He just had to be himself.”

Even with _different mores, Rose, get used to it_ and _I’m all alone_ and _It’s Cardiff not Naples_ , all he had to do was be himself. She’d always loved him for that.

Amélie snorted and Rose became even more convinced that her marriage to Rupert was on the opposite spectrum of Rose’s own. For a heartbeat, Rose debated circling around Amélie’s own marriage—how they met and what not. Fuck it.

“What do you want to know, Amélie?” she asked, voice only slightly hard, annoyed.

Amélie did a very convincing job of blinking in surprise at the question. “Just curious. I thought we were becoming friends, Rose.”

Friends her arse.

“We could be,” Rose admitted, eyes narrowed as if to help figure out Amélie’s secrets. “But you’re hiding something that could hurt my family. And I want to know what it is.” Rose paused and watched the other woman, but Amélie kept her gaze on the road ahead. “I’m not going to rat you out, Amélie. I just want to protect the ones I love.”

Amélie’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. They were nearly back to Broad Oak now. Rose was again running out of time to get the answers she needed.

“They’re not after you,” Amélie said softly. She pulled onto the side of the road and turned off the car. After a beat her fingers unclenched from the steering wheel and she turned to face Rose. Amélie looked haunted…and hunted.

“Walk with me?”

Rose automatically nodded. They were between the village and Broad Oak where no one could hear their conversation. Keeping an eye on the other woman, Rose rounded the car to where Amélie stood. They didn’t walk, but stood against the car in the crisp March day.

“Tell me,” she said softly, no less full of hard steel, but no less compassionate. She wanted to help Amélie, she did. But never at the cost of John or Jack. “We can help.”

Amélie’s laugh was bitter and broken and lonely. She ran a hand through her hair and when she faced Rose it was with a bleak look of helplessness.

“I doubt that,” Amélie whispered. “I really do.”

“Are you in danger?” Rose demanded.

Her heart beat faster and she tried to envision how anything Amélie had done affected them, how it endangered John and Jack. Licking her lips, she played with her earing, a small pearl rather than her normal hoops.

“I made a deal with the wrong people,” Amélie admitted. “A long time ago, but it’s coming back to haunt me now.”

“Who were these people?” Rose whispered.

First thing first: figure out if they were really people or aliens out for an Earth-bound prize—people or resources or invasion. Or something entirely different.

“I…” Amélie closed her eyes and let out a shuddering sigh. “You can’t help me.”

Rose wanted to scream. She blew out a frustrated breath and unclenched her jaw. “I can.” She said it with such conviction Amélie’s eyes flew open in surprise. “Martha and I have resources you can’t even imagine.”

Instead of saying something disparaging about Martha, Amélie merely nodded. Rose doubted the other woman believed her, but it looked as if she was going to talk, anyway. Amélie took a deep breath, then another. They stood beside the car in the biting wind on the side of the deserted road and waited.

Rose didn’t push, though was prepared to drag the other woman back to the cottage and make her talk.

“What do you know about the Blueshirts?” Amélie whispered as if these mysterious Blueshirts could hear her in the middle of the road in the middle of nowhere. “The IRA?”

Rose blinked. “IRA? The Irish Republican Army?” Letting out a relieved breath of laughter, she shook her head. Not aliens. Unless an alien had infiltrated the IRA, but it didn’t sound like that. “That wasn’t what I expected. I suppose I know what’s in the newspapers,” Rose admitted, wracking her brain.

She knew about the bombings, of course, and the peace accords; those had been all over the papers. Rose had heard about North Ireland, too, and the Protestant and Catholic segregation there, but not much beyond what the headlines screamed and what the first paragraph of the articles read.

But that was all in her time, in the 1990s and 2000s. She had no idea what was going on in Ireland now. Actually, Rose didn’t even know whose side Ireland fought on during World War 2, but had a faint idea they’d remained neutral.

Did they need to call Sarah Jane again? Or was that pushing their luck in changing history? She bit her thumb cuticle and listened to Amélie as the other woman finally told her story.

“I fell in with some of them at university,” she started slowly.

“These Blueshirts?” Rose asked. She had no idea who they were, but didn’t know enough about the inner workings of the IRA, the Irish government, or the different factions controlling or fighting for Ireland. Her history was woefully lacking in the Irish department.

“They weren’t known as that then. They were…radicals, I guess. A group of people who wanted to change the world. Or at least the British Empire. The Blueshirts were part of the IRA. They split over political ideologies.” She dismissed that with a wave. “All I cared about was that they were exciting and going to change the world, and I wanted to be a part of that.”

“Are you Irish, Amélie?” Rose asked. She sounded very posh English, but then Amélie wouldn’t be the first to affect an accent.

“No, Scottish.” Then, before Rose could ask, Amélie added, “My very Catholic mother is French, my father is Scottish.”

“I wasn’t aware the Scots were involved,” Rose said slowly.

This was getting more complicated than Rose had anticipated. But then nothing about this ‘adventure’ in Kent County was uncomplicated.

She sighed and Rose had a sinking suspicion about this entire situation. “Then I fell in love with one of them.” 

Amélie leaned against the car, her head making a faint thump as she looked at the sky; the wind whipped around them and Rose shoved her gloved hands into her coat pockets. The Cliffs were gorgeous, but the wind was terrible. Still, it served to keep Rose’s mind clear. She had a feeling she’d need all her wits to keep Amélie’s story straight.

“He didn’t love me. He used me to get to Rupert.”

“Why Rupert?” Rose asked when Amélie didn’t seem inclined to go on.

She had questions about Amélie in university, about who these Blueshirts were, about what a rich Scottish-French girl wanted with rebels, and a hundred or so other questions about the socio-political implications of everything about this situation. Answers Rose wasn’t sure she wanted.

She focused on one thing at a time.

“Specifically Rupert?” Had the TARDIS brought them here because of this? Or was being here triggering something in Broad Oak?

“Specifically him,” Amélie said in barely more than a whisper. “Because of the location of Broad Oak.”

“I don’t understand,” Rose admitted. She felt a headache starting behind her eyes. “And I’m freezing. Let’s head back to the cottage. We’ll have a cup of tea and you can tell me—tell us—everything.”

Amélie scoffed. “I’m not telling your maid a thing. This was a mistake.”

Rose grabbed Amélie’s arm before she realized she’d moved. Narrowing her eyes at the other woman Rose said very slowly and very clearly and without a hint of sympathy or compassion or understanding. “I trust Martha with my life. More importantly, I trust her with _John’s_ life. She’s brilliant and will _not_ betray you.”

She didn’t know what Amélie saw in her gaze, but the other woman paled even more than she usually was and tried to step back. Rose tightened her grip on Amélie’s arm. “I don’t care what your reasons were for joining these Blueshirts or redshirts or whatever. I don’t care what you’ve mixed yourself up in. That’s your affair. My only concern is my family.”

Rose paused and said in a low, hard voice, _“And that includes Martha.”_

Finally Amélie nodded. “All right.” Amélie licked her lips and asked in a quiet voice, “Can you really help?”

Despite not knowing what Amélie had gotten herself into, what trouble the IRA posed, who these Blueshirts were, why Broad Oak was so important to them, or where Rupert fit into all this, Rose nodded firmly. “We can.”

Five minutes later, they were seated around the cottage’s kitchen table and Amélie was explaining the Blueshirts, how they related to the IRA, how they’d morphed into the Greenshirts (Rose didn’t ask why they based their organization’s name off the color of their shirts) and, more importantly, how they related to Nazi Germany.

“The Nazis?” Martha repeated in surprise from where she leaned against the kitchen sink. “I didn’t know the Irish were involved with the Nazis.”

Rose frowned and worried her thumb cuticle. She wracked her brain, but all she could remember about the Troubles were Catholic versus Protestant and Irish versus the entire UK; religion and land and resources. Were they neutral during World War 2 as she thought? Had they allied themselves with Nazi Germany?

“What do they want you to do?” Rose asked as she sorted through the puzzle pieces that were Amélie’s story. “What do the Nazis want with the Irish? Just another ally? What do they want with Broad Oak?”

“They want to use Broad Oak and St. Margaret’s as a landing platform for a German invasion.”

Rose swallowed hard. Torchwood, hunters, and now fascist Irish in league with the Nazis. She rubbed her fingers over her forehead. Her head pounded.

“All right,” Rose said and pressed her warm teacup against her temple. It didn’t really help with the pounding. “How much of their plan do you know? What’s the timetable for it? How long do we have?”

“And who’s involved?” Martha put in, stepping closer to the table. “Anyone else on the farm? How do they contact you? And what’s Rupert’s position on all this?”

“Rupert?” Amélie asked, apparently too surprised at the question to chastise Martha for using the master’s first name.

“Yeah,” Martha said with a look that clearly said what she thought of Amélie’s current position. “Does he have any ties to the IRA or the British government? Is he sympathetic or against the Irish cause? What are his feelings about the Nazis? The war?”

Rose looked up at her sharply. Martha cursed. “The uh, talk of war?” she hastily corrected with a grimace. “Hitler in the Rhineland and all?” 

“Rupert only cares about his horses,” Amélie snapped. Clearly a sore point for the woman. “He supports the government in as much as it doesn’t affect him. I’ve never heard him say anything one way or the other.”

“Anyone else on Broad Oak support the Irish?” Rose asked, tapping her fingers on the table.

They went through each person until Amélie admitted she didn’t think so. “They all were here when I married Rupert.”

Rose sighed. “How long ago was that?”

“Two years.”

Apparently her history was woefully lacking when it came to the origins of World War 2, too.

“This plan has been in the making for two years?” Martha asked. She blinked at Amélie then stared at Rose, incredulous. Without a word, she headed for the living room.

Rose heard her in the drinks cabinet. She hoped Martha brought the whole bottle. They were going to need it.

“Should we call Sarah Jane?” Martha asked when she returned with the bottle of brandy.

“I don’t know,” Rose admitted and chewed what was left of her thumb nail. “But I don’t know of any Nazi invasion. Think there’d have been a movie on it by now.”

“Or even a thwarted one,” Martha agreed as she poured the brandy into their empty teacups. “Still.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“What are you two talking about?” Amélie demanded.

Rose looked across the table from her and didn’t even need to debate telling the other woman the truth. They wouldn’t. Amélie was in enough trouble and if she needed leverage to save herself, telling her about the Doctor, time travel, and the TARDIS would prove disastrous.

“Who contacted you?” Rose demanded instead. “The man you fell in love with?”

“Gareth?” Amélie scoffed. “No. He’s a coward. I heard he went to Spain.”

“Then who was it? Someone new to Broad Oak?” Rose sipped her brandy. It burned pleasantly. “We’d have heard about anyone new in the village.”

“It was Shawn O’Duffy who contacted me. He wasn’t around when I knew Gareth. But he used all the right codes and passwords.” Amélie downed her brandy in one gulp. She looked utterly defeated.

“Amélie,” Martha began slowly, “why did you change your mind? Or did you not, just needed help to carry it through?”

Rose stared from Martha to Amélie and wondered why neither of them had asked that question before. She watched the other woman through narrowed eyes.

“Do you want our help in stopping them?” Rose asked. If Amélie answered no, she was ready to blindfold the other woman and stash her in the TARDIS until they figured out a way around this.

“I changed my mind almost immediately,” Amélie admitted softly. She licked her lips and raised her bright eyes, now dull with powerlessness. “When I realized how far they’d go to get what they wanted.”

“How far?” Martha demanded.

“They killed one of their own. Niall was a lovely boy. He only wanted to make Ireland a better place. No violence, no guns. He’d heard of this chap from India and thought his way of non-violent resistance was the better way to create an Ireland everyone could live in.”

“Gandhi?” Martha guessed.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Yes, I think so.” Amélie stared curiously at Martha for a heartbeat before returning her attention to Rose. “They killed him. Niall. They killed him because he disagreed with them.”

“And is that why you married Rupert?” Rose asked softly.

“My family had some money and a couple horses.” Amélie sighed and held her teacup out to Martha with a silent plea. She didn’t drink immediately, but spoke into her cup instead. “I convinced my father that Rupert had a great plan to remake Broad Oak and that our horses—and the McCloud name—would find their place in history.”

“Does your father know what you’re involved in?” Rose asked.

“No. No one does. Well,” Amélie said and downed her drink. “Now you two do.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I’m not sure how you’re going to help me, though.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Rose promised. “All we need is a little time. A couple days,” she amended. “Can you buy us that?”

“We have until Easter.”

Rose wanted to ask why Easter, how important the date was or if it was simply a nice placeholder. Instead she asked, “When is Easter this year?”

“The 12th of April,” Amélie said in the tone of someone who had long ago memorized the date. And dreaded it.

“We have less than a month,” Martha said, alarm creeping into her voice.

“Amélie,” Rose said and stood. She gently clasped the other woman’s arm and tugged her into a standing position. “Go home. Pretend this didn’t happen. Martha and I will figure it out, but we need you to act like nothing’s changed.”

“Do you know where they’re supposed to come ashore?” Martha asked. She rummaged through one of the drawers and came out with a map of the area. Where had she found that? Had the map always been there?

“St. Margaret’s Bay,” Amélie said. It took her only a moment to point it out on the map.

Rose tilted her head to the side. “And what’s your role in this? I mean, why did they need you here? What are you supposed to do? Marry Rupert I get, but any one of them could’ve got a job on the farm as a hand. No need for you to marry the owner.”

Amélie shook her head. “They want to use Broad Oak as their base. With a respectable member of the community here, it’d be easier.”

Sighing, frustrated and scared, Rose nodded. She already knew that. But why force Amélie to marry Rupert? It made no sense—they could’ve simply taken over Broad Oak and gone from there. If the invasion was (had been? would be?) successful, Rose doubted they’d leave anyone in the area alive anyway.

“Go home, Amélie.” Rose told her. “Act normal. We’ll figure something out.”

She all but shoved Amélie out the cottage door. Back in the kitchen, Rose stared at Martha, who hadn’t moved from her position by the counter.

“Hunters, Torchwood, and now Nazis,” Martha said, bewildered. She shook her head and sank into Amélie’s abandoned chair and caught Rose’s gaze. Martha’s lips twitched and she let out a strangled laugh.

Feeling her own lips twitch in slightly hysterical laughter, Rose tried to tamp down on the urge. “Life’s never dull!”

A giggle escaped Martha. Rose pressed her lips together, but it was no use. Martha held out the decanter of brandy and Rose took a drink, eschewing a glass of any kind. She passed the bottle back to Martha.

“We’re going to need a better plan,” Rose sighed.

“We have a plan now?” Martha asked in amused bewilderment.

“No,” Rose drew the word out in agreement. She rubbed her eyes; sluggish didn’t begin to describe how she felt these days.

But Martha already worried over her, and she knew John had noticed her distinct lack of energy, too. She wasn’t eating as healthy as on the TARDIS, but she wasn’t eating unhealthy, either. She knew something wasn’t right, but didn’t want to take any energy from the TARDIS so Martha could scan her.

She’d just have to muddle through as best she could for another couple months. Besides, they had entirely too much to worry about as it was without her adding to the mix.

“Here, have a banana.” Martha shoved the fruit in her face and Rose blinked.

“A banana? I’m not hungry.” Her appetite had deserted her as well, though she tried to force herself to eat when John could see her. She didn’t need him worrying on top of everything else.

“Bananas are good,” Martha smirked. Rose snickered. “Good for iron, blood pressure, energy, depression, and hangovers.” She looked liked she was going to say more, but simply waited for Rose to eat the banana.

“Good.” Martha nodded when Rose had finished and composted the peel. “Now. We’re going to need a plan.”

“And a better one than what got us stuck here,” Rose pointed out with unusual cynicism. She shook her head—on paper, the plan to hide the Doctor and Jack as humans had seemed sound. If one excluded any interaction with a surrounding community.

Once outsiders were introduced, the ‘this is a great plan’ theory would inevitably be shot to hell. This one had scattered around them in a thousand pieces. 

“I think first thing tomorrow I’ll have to sneak into the TARDIS,” Martha began.

“And read up on the IRA, a potential Nazi invasion, and these Blueshirts?” Rose asked rhetorically.

Martha nodded. “Anything else? I could call Sarah Jane…” she trailed off with a frown and Rose knew her friend felt just the same as she did about further futuristic involvement.

“No, not until we know if we need to or not.” Rose took a deep breath. “Should we tell John and Jack?”

“I don’t know,” Martha admitted quietly. “I just don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I based this mention of IRA involvement with the Nazi’s on the book by Jack Higgins, _The Eagle has Landed_. Good book, good movie, not sure about the historical accuracy, but it’s definitely not out of the realm of possibility. The Blueshirts were real, a very small segment of the IRA that was eventually kicked out of both the IRA and the Irish Free Government; they went on to fight for Franco’s fascist government in Spain.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time ripples or nightmares or are they memories? When one opens one’s mind, is there really a difference? (I almost cut this first scene, it does nothing to move the story along, but I really liked it. So I included it for no other reason than that.)

**Day 33:**  
Her heart flipped in her chest and Rose felt a smile light her lips at the sight of John standing by Rupert Fitzpatrick. He waved his arms as he told a story, she couldn’t hear the specifics, but even from here she heard the two men laughing.

She couldn’t see Jack, but knew he wasn’t far. Perhaps in with one of the mares, it was foaling season after all. And oh, had she learned more than she’d wanted to about horses and breeding and foaling and other horsy stuff in their 5 weeks here.

Today Martha was off alone; she said she needed some time, needed a long walk. And though Rose had wondered if she’d snuck off with Jack, hadn’t said anything. She understood all about wanting to be alone and not wanting people to ask tons of questions.

But Martha had promised to stop by the TARDIS and bring back a couple local history books on Kent—their afternoon reading to see if there was any mention of a thwarted Nazi invasion. So far they hadn’t discovered anything relevant, and Rose all but heard the clock ticking down.

Out of time.  
Out of Time.  
Out.  
Of.  
Time.

It mocked her. It terrified her, this sense of failure, of inadequacy, of incompetence. But she pushed all that aside and smiled. Smiled to hide her pain and her fear and her terror. Smiled to make this right. Because she’d be damned if she did fail.

She’d fight the universe itself to save the Doctor (John). Both. Each and every. Because they were one in the same. One and the same.

_And they were both hers._

Rose’s smile widened when John turned and caught sight of her. As if he’d known she was there and Rose wondered if he had. The Doctor often seemed to simply sense when she was close; she’d used their bond once or twice to find him, but only when she was tired.

Now that she thought about it, using their bond to locate him happened more often when her defenses were down. Rose wondered why and added it to the list of things they needed to talk about once he was fully the Doctor again.

Their bond hovered faintly on the peripheral of her mind, there but not the blazing brightness of when they were intimate. Still, she embraced it, caressed it, and watched John’s gaze darken ever so slightly. Because he felt it, as she knew he would. No matter how human he was now, there was enough Time Lord…or possibly Doctor…left in him to connect with their bond.

“Mr. Fitzpatrick.” Rose smiled up at the man as she automatically reached out her free hand for John’s. His fingers twined with hers so naturally she could almost forget this new situation was anything but an adventure.

_Keep the Doctor safe. Keep Jack safe._

Almost.

“Ah, Mrs. Harkness.” Rupert nodded. “Your husband was just telling me about the time he and Jack stole a half-dozen horses from the Germans.”

Rose had no idea what that story was about or where John had gotten it from, but had a feeling Jack had somehow ended up naked in it. Jack usually did. Though who knew about this Jack. She chuckled, nodded in what she hoped was an appropriate manner becoming a lady as she wondered about the differences between Jacks, and didn’t say anything about nakedness.

All she could hear was Queen Victoria’s _I’m tired of her nakedness_ in that snooty aristocratic voice of hers and tried not to snicker. Rose laughed and maintained her smile, _(Protect the Doctor)_ forcing it wider as Rupert said something she totally missed. _(Out of time.)  
_  
Beside her, she felt John tense but had no idea why.

“I’ll leave you to your lunch,” Rupert said and turned to leave, still shaking his head and still chuckling. Yup—Jack was undoubtedly naked in that story.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, turning to John, her smile faltering slightly.

“Walk with me.” The abrupt tone made her frown, but she knew all the Doctor’s tones. This one wasn’t one to worry about. He was annoyed but not in that anxious life-threatening way or even the someone-did-something-stupid-and-didn’t-listen-to-me way.

“Not hungry?” she asked as they moved away from the corrals and towards the tree line John seemed to favor when it was just the two of them. Where they’d made love several times now. Suddenly John seemed to favor the freezing outdoors for their rendezvous. “I brought the last of Martha’s banana-banana bread.”

That got a faint smile from him. Rose shrugged and took his hand, easily keeping pace with him as they walked, not too fast but with definite purpose. She’d bet money John had that same innate instinct the Doctor had about precise places—and every spot they’d ever made love—even if he didn’t realize it.

“I don’t like it when you do that.”

The flat words surprised her and Rose stopped. Frowning up at him she tried to decipher that cryptic statement. Human or Time Lord, sometimes the man made no sense.

“Do what?” She released his hand and set the small basket on the ground just outside the wood and spread the blanket she’d taken to bringing for their lunches. Some days they had longer than others depending on what John was doing with the horses, but she was always prepared. 

“Flirt like that.”

Rose blinked up at John from where she knelt by the basket. “Flirt? With who?” she demanded. Then narrowed her eyes and said in a low voice, _“Fitzpatrick?”_

“Rose,” John said in that exasperated tone she knew from her first Doctor when he accused her of picking up pretty boys. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“And what,” she asked dangerously, lunch forgotten. In fact, she might just upend the basket over her idiot’s husband’s head. “Is it I’m doing?”

In the weak light, heavy clouds obscuring what sunlight there was, Rose saw something in John snap. Again, she was forcibly reminded of her first Doctor, when she had no idea how to relate to him, how to deal with a maturity between them.

The trust and hope and conviction present between them almost from the first, all that faith and belief she’d never shared with another. Then or now. When she’d done unnecessary things to make him jealous or when she’d said things designed to hurt him because she was hurt herself and had lashed out in the only way she’d known how.

The look in his ice-blue eyes easily translated to John’s brown eyes (new new Doctor, same Doctor) and Rose had to fight the instinct to hold him close.

Before she decided what to do—hold him and comfort him or punch him for being an idiot—John knelt before her, hands on her shoulders, face inches away. And he was angry. Not furiously angry—but hurt and scared and oh, she knew this man.

This insecure, frightened man who didn’t think he deserved to be loved or forgiven for what he’d had to do. _(Tell me about Arcadia…We lost. All of us. All of them. I—they all died, Rose.)_

“Don’t do that!” his shouted, though his voice sounded hoarse and rough. “Flirt with other men. You’re mine.”

His mouth was hard, hot, demanding on hers, and he took and took and Rose let him. Let him spread himself out and out. As abruptly as he’d kissed her, he pulled back. Rested his forehead against hers, breathing heavily.

“I am,” Rose said calmly. She clenched her jaw against the words telling him how stupid he was. Instead she took a deep breath, reined in her own anger and confusion and bafflement, and said in a hard, firm voice, “I am yours. And if you think smiling at another man makes me less so, you’re a bloody stupid idiot.”

John jerked back. Rose glared up at him.

She took his hand, held it up to show him the ring he wore in case he’d forgotten. “I don’t marry just any man who asks,” she said and saw that knowledge shift in his eyes. Bugger. Well, she’d deal with that later. “See this?”

She held up her own hand with the silver ring and red gem he’d given her on a beach on Jahoo with their friends and family _(I wish mum and Mickey were here)_ and pink coral sand and Glenn Miller.

“I’m not taking it off. Ever. Why?” She twined their fingers together but continued to glare at him. “Because when I agreed to marry you it was out of love and respect and the very simple fact I can’t bloody well live without you.”

She paused. “Even if you are a bloody idiot.”

A ghost of a smile crossed his lips and the tension bracketing his mouth eased, but she wasn’t finished. Even though John’s penchant for babbling wasn’t as impressive as the Doctor’s, it was still very much present.

“And I’m not going to stop speaking to other men,” she ground out. “I’m not going to ignore _anyone_ ,” she continued in that same inflexible tone. “I refuse to sit by, head bowed and legs crossed, and pretend I’m invisible while the menfolk do all the talking. That’s not the woman I am and that’s not the woman you married. Or did you forget that?” she demanded.

“Rose,” John began, but she poked him in the stomach. “Oi!”

She sat back on her heels and glared at him. As she did, she cataloged his drawn features, the harsh lines making his mouth drawn and bleak, the faint line between his brows. This wasn’t the Doctor she’d fallen in love with. This wasn’t even the John who smiled and laughed and made her heart pound just that much harder.

“So.” She folded her arms over her chest and waited. “What’s wrong?”

His lips drew into a flat line and he took a deep breath. “I can’t lose you.”

Of all the things Rose thought he’d say, that wasn’t it. Hadn’t they discussed this? She and John, that day with the possession and control and what started them on this path of erotic domination that made her insides clench with wet need; made her want to surrender everything to John.

“You’re not going to lose me.”

“Rose, I—”

“What,” she cut him off but not with the harshness of her previous words, “makes you say that? What makes you think that? And _what_ makes you think me talking to Fitzpatrick is you in any way losing me?”

He looked lost, afloat in an eddy of emotions only he knew and couldn’t or wouldn’t share with her. That lost look of ice-blue eyes and desolate loneliness. The softer brown, but still a desperate need for reassurance that she was there.

The weeks and months they’d spent constantly together, terrified the other would disappear after she’d returned from the other universe.

“John, I’m not going to leave you.”

“I—” he cut himself off. “I had a dream that you were gone. Not just gone, but trapped.” His voice broke and Rose’s heart skipped a beat. He’d remembered that? How? “I don’t know where. But I couldn’t get to you. You…you were just gone.” John scrubbed his hands over his face, mouth set in a firm line.

Rose reached out and cupped his cheek. “Tell me what you dreamed,” she said softly.

“I don’t know where I was, I didn’t recognize the area.” He swallowed hard. His eyes sought hers, hard and broken and filled with heartbreak and tears. It hurt her to see him like this. “Jack was there. I don’t know what we were talking about, the rest is fuzzy. All I remember is telling him about you.”

John paused and when he spoke, his voice sounded like he’d been dragged over broken glass, ragged and shattered “When you took my hand, when I felt your fingers against mine, I remembered it. The dream. And it just all…”

Swallowing, he shook his head, voice defeated. “I don’t know. All I remember is what I said to him. _She's gone, Jack. She's not just living on a parallel world, she's trapped there. The walls have closed._ ”

She took in a deep breath, watched him struggle to do the same. But she’d been with him, with all of them, when Jack had found the Doctor again. She’d _been there_ for their reunion—her first jump, against all odds, with the cannon back to this universe. To the Doctor.

“I’m here,” she whispered, her words thick and heavy. Rose swallowed tears and pulled him to her. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

Rose wrapped her arms around him and simply held. He crushed her to him, breaths ragged, mouth pressed to the side of her neck. He whispered her name, interspersed with fragmented bits of Gallifreyan he didn’t know he spoke. Some she understood, some she didn’t. 

For long, long minutes he remained silent. Not quite sobbing in her arms, but breaking down, as if he screamed-shouted-begged-pleaded with the universe for a single kindness. To bring her back to him.

Rose didn’t know how long they stayed like that, how long she held him or he held her, but eventually John pulled back. The look in his gaze stole her breath.

Fear and nightmares and hopelessness. How had she ever thought John’s eyes were not the same as the Doctor’s?

She pressed her hand to his cheek, her words gone.

“I still don’t know how you’re here, Rose.” He began slowly. Softly, as if saying the words aloud would make her disappear like a fairytale spell.

Rose didn’t know if he meant here as in with him, John, or here in this universe when he’d thought he’d lost her forever.

“I look at you and wonder why you love me. Why you married me. Why you stay.” He swallowed hard, eyes bleak. His fingers were warm but stiff on the nape of her neck, his other hand on the curve of her bum. Just holding her to him. Against him. Close.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” he said, voice like broken glass over the words. “Every nightmare I have is of you leaving me.”

“You’re a good man, John.” She framed his face and made sure he looked directly at her. “You are. You’re smart and funny and know how to show people the world when they’re trapped in their own little houses.”

Rose pressed her lips to his. How had she not realized the Doctor’s fears had stayed with John? Hadn’t she already known John was the same man? She tucked her head under his chin and pressed his lips to his neck.

“I’m not going to disappear,” she promised, voice catching. “I’m going to stay right here with you. Always.”

“Always,” John repeated. “I love you, Rose. I love you more than anything in this universe.” He kissed her, a hard press of his mouth. “I’m never leaving you. I can’t. I won’t survive without you.”

 ******  
Day 34:**  
Martha struggled to wake, gasping for air as she fought invisible hands pressing her down and invisible laughter echoing in her head and an invisible menace circling her and hovering over her and strangling her with fear and hate and greed.

Tangled in the bedding, in the ridiculously long nightgown she wore, she opened her eyes and didn’t know where she was. No soothing hum of the TARDIS greeted her. Strong arms didn’t encircle her and hold her close. She gasped and gasped and struggled to remember and feel and fight but nothing changed.

She was alone.  
Alone and no one knew who she was.  
Alone in that…that building. Couldn’t see what or where.

She was alone and lonely and now the hunters (The Family?) had found her, found them. What was she…? The watch. She had to keep the watch safe. Keep it safe and keep the Doctor safe. It was her. Had to be her. Was her. Only her.

Scrambling out of bed, Martha tripped on the quilt, stubbed her toe on something very hard and cursed as the nightgown twisted around her legs. Finally, finally she lunged for the dresser. Why had she kept it so far from her? The Doctor…he needed her to keep this safe. The Doctor…No. 

Jack. _Jack_ needed her to keep his watch safe.

Keep him, the real Jack, the sexy, funny, flirting man who couldn’t die and who cared for her more than anyone Martha’d ever known. That was who she had to keep safe.

But Jenny…they’d…they’d…what? What had they done to Jenny? Who was Jenny?

Shaking, heart pounding so loud it blocked out all other sounds, Martha made her way back to her bed on legs that felt like jelly. She sat on the edge and tried to control her breathing and racing heart, but all she really managed was to hold the watch close to her.

Her bedroom door burst open, faint light illuminating Jack. She’d know him anywhere. Everywhere. The cottage. She was in the cottage in 1936 with the Doctor, Jack, and Rose. Yes. Not at that building…a…a school? Not alone. She had Rose. Rose knew…knew…

“Martha?” Jack was across the room in quick strides, slipping into bed with her and gathering her close. Strong arms wrapped around her, pulled her close to his chest, hands gentle on her arms, rubbing her back. “What’s wrong?”

“I…I…” Martha shook her head. Shook. Didn’t want to let him see the watch, couldn’t let him. Didn’t know what it’d do to him. Would he know it? Recognize it? As tempting as it was to have her Jack back, she couldn’t. Not yet. Wasn’t time yet and Martha absolutely would not risk him.

“I don’t know, Jack,” she whispered through a throat that ached.

Many things were wrong. So very many things. But he’d come when she needed him.

Come and held her close and warmed her chilled body with his and soothed her pounding heart. His lips brushed her temple and she sighed, muscles losing their unsettling quivering with every breath. She breathed him in, the smell of horses and Jack, almost, _almost_ , Her Jack.

She just wanted him to continue holding her and feel the steady beat of his heart and the warmth of his body and the feel of his lips against her skin.

She didn’t know anyone named Jenny. The cottage was stone and quaint, nothing like the…building. What had that building been? _Was_ it a school? Felt like one in the dream. She didn’t remember any more. Couldn’t see it clearly, the image had faded. No, it blurred.

Even Jenny’s face distorted. And the Doctor’s. She couldn’t see his face clearly any longer; only hear the wrenching echo of… isolation.

And even that faded.

She shoved the watch beneath her pillow and made her decision.

“Don’t leave me tonight,” she whispered into the semidarkness, into Jack’s touch. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Jack turned her and kissed her. Martha didn’t care that it wasn’t Her Jack’s kiss. It was warm and passionate and if a little more tentative than she was used to, it didn’t matter.

 ******  
Day 34**  
John woke with a start. He reached for…for…Rose. _Rose_. His Rose. He reached for Rose. Pulled her close. Buried his face in her hair and breathed deeply of her scent. Home and peace and calm and love.

His mind reached out for…for…and found hers, the gentle golden light he associated with Rose and contentment and happiness and peace and fulfillment. His mind reached out for more, but he didn’t know what or who. Really, he didn’t even know how his mind did that, but it did and the connection he had with Rose was enough to make him forget those other questions.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

One arm reached behind her, wound around his neck, fingers tangling in his hair. “D—John, love, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. And tried not to let the insecure jealousy seep into his voice. Ever since they’d come to Broad Oak, Rose seemed to stumble over his name. He didn’t know who this mysterious D person was but it burned through him like hot rage.

But then she touched him or smiled at him or kissed him and he forgot. Forgot everything and everyone but Rose. Rose and her love, her hand in his, her mouth on his. _(I love you, John)_ and soft caresses and desperate touches.

“I had a dream. Martha was there.” Why was Martha there? Where was there?

“You were…gone.” He shook himself. Or maybe he just shook. That dream again, where she’d disappeared behind white walls and screaming emptiness and _She's gone, Jack. She's trapped there_. “I’d lost you. I’d lost you and Martha was…”

Let me die.  
Let the  
Loneliness  
Heartbreak  
Heartsbreak  
End.

His words petered out and he stumbled over fading images. “I’d lost you, my heart.” John shook his head. “Martha and I were at a school of some sort.”

“School?” Rose asked, turning in his arms. Wrapped around him. Held him close. “Where?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember. It’s vague.” John shook his head again. Breathed deeply of the scent of her. “I can’t remember. But scarecrows were chasing us.”

Even in the darkness, he felt her lips curl into a smile against his cheek. “Very _Wonderful Wizard of Oz_ -ish.” She let out a quiet laugh, but though he couldn’t see her gaze, John knew the humor didn’t reach her eyes. Felt her concern and anxiety and unease—for him.

Rose’s hand cupped the back of his head and held him to her. He leaned into the touch. Home. Wife. Love.

“I haven’t read Baum since…” Since (Ace and Dorothy and question marks and his library. He had a signed first edition in his library and remembered reading it by the fire, to the gentle hum of…) “In ages,” he hastened to say. _Centuries._ He’d wanted to say centuries. His brain must still be muddled. Not awake yet.

“Maybe we’ll read him together,” Rose whispered. “I’ve only ever seen…have heard the story. Read to me sometime.”

John agreed, he’d done that before. Read her Dickens in front of…their door? The sun…rise or set or…it was brilliant. Flashing colors he thought he had names for and brilliant clouds forming. Where had he read Dickens to Rose? She’d leaned against him, his back to the doorjamb, the doors open onto a stunning vista of…a nebula.

How did he know they’d been in front of a nebula, reading Dickens to Rose?

Instead, he kissed her. “My heart,” he whispered against her lips.

Forced scarecrows and danger and alone and loneliness and strange unexplained visions from his mind and focused on the one thing, the only thing that made sense. 

Rose.

 ********  
“John had the strangest dream last night,” Rose said once the men had gone off to their horse training and they’d finished their yoga and the breakfast dishes.

When all this was over and Rose didn’t have to watch her every word, she planned on asking the Doctor, or the TARDIS, or both, why _horses_. Why not a globetrotting journalist? Or a ship’s captain? Or a teacher at some school in London where there was more to do than wander the moors?

Did Kent have moors? Or was that just north? What constituted a moor? Wander the cliffs, then. Didn’t have the same meaning. The same lonely romanticism. And she was losing her mind.

“What about?” Martha bent to add a couple pieces of leftover egg to Winston’s bowl, and the cat showed his love and affection at the move by rubbing against Martha’s hand and purring contentedly.

“He said you and he were at a school, I think.” Rose shook her head and straightened her skirt. She was spending the day with Amélie. Maybe drilling Amélie for more information was a slightly more adequate explanation for their day.

“School?” Martha stared at her, face ashen, eyes wide. “A big stone school?”

“Dunno.” Rose eyed her friend carefully as she rolled down the sleeves on her blouse. She’d give a lot for a T-shirt, too. “He couldn’t remember. But he was shaking after he woke up.”

“I had a dream about that, too,” Martha said in a whisper like glass crunching beneath bare feet. “The other night. I don’t remember all of it, but we were at a building—thought it was a school. Him and me, just us, running. We’d run, had to hide; I had to keep him safe.”

“You had the same dream.” It wasn’t a question, which was just as well because Rose had no answer for it. But the fact of it clawed through her.

Martha licked her lips and slowly nodded. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Rose swallowed hard. “Maybe it’s those ripples he mentioned.”

“Ripples? How do you mean?” Martha’s voice was sharp and scared.

Rose knew how Martha felt, but kept her voice calm. Though her heart raced and her blood ran cold and she knew that no matter how she grasped at threads, no matter what she’d learned in that other universe on temporal and metaphysical physics or what a causal nexus was and how to prevent it, she had no answers for either her or Martha.

“He just said he saw these ripples, like overlapping…um…” Rose waved a hand. Winston leaped onto the table and followed the movement as if she were a tasty mouse for him to pounce on. “He only mentioned them once, right after I got back. Hasn’t said anything about them again. It made him dizzy, like timelines overlapped.”

“Was it that Dalek’s time shift?” Martha asked. She cleared her throat and forcibly cut into an apple. “Could that cause it? When it jumped and you appeared?”

“Don’t know,” Rose admitted, fingers curled against the tabletop in a vain effort to steady herself. “The Doctor thought it was Jack, the wrongness of him being a fixed point in all times and all.”

“You don’t think that?”

“I don’t know,” Rose whispered. Winston purred against her wrist and Rose automatically stroked his back. “And now I don’t know if he kept more of those ripples from me, didn’t want to tell me about them or…” And it’d be just like the Doctor, not telling her. Even after their marriage and their fight over the Dalek in Manhattan.

With a certainty she knew in her soul and through their bond, Rose knew he still kept things, important things like the time ripples, from her. Damn him! She tried not to be angry. It’d do her no good, not here in Kent.

Why couldn’t he just be honest? Trust her? Trust _them_?

“But we both shared the same…dream,” Martha said eventually. Her hand was warm on Rose’s arm and Rose smiled at the other woman in gratefulness. “Trust me,” Martha added with a laugh, “that’s never happened before. And,” she said thoughtfully, “I didn’t think that was possible without a type of bond, like what you two have.”

Rose swallowed hard and blinked away frustrated tears and currently impotent anger. “Dunno. We’ve never shared dreams, even with the bond.”

“We’ll have to take notes,” Martha continued as if Rose’s words hadn’t dropped like lead between them. Her voice was clipped now, the Doctor Martha Mode. “See what other similarities and differences there are. See if there are any other ripples or dreams or whatever.”

Rose nodded, but her stomach twisted in dread and she didn’t know why.

“Jack came to my room that night,” Martha said into the silence. “The night I had the nightmare about the watch and the Doctor. He heard me, I guess.” She looked puzzled for a heartbeat. “He didn’t say how he knew,” she admitted slowly, “but he came in anyway.”

Eyebrow raised, Rose forced a wide smile. “And did you let him comfort you?”

“Might have done,” Martha said with a wicked grin. There and gone in an instant. “But,” she added with a wistful look, “I don’t think I’ll let him again. He snuck out before dawn.”

Martha said that as often as Rose had sworn to herself that she wouldn’t fall in love with John. Far too late for that now. She loved John with all the fierceness and depth and determination she did the Doctor. He was the Doctor.

And he was hers.

“Not the same Jack,” Rose commiserated. But then thought about that—Jack had perfected the fine art of never getting caught. She wondered if that had somehow fallen over onto this Jack-not-Jack but in a totally different way.

“What are you going to do?” she asked instead.

“Don’t know,” Martha sighed. “But I’m tired of being indoors. Let’s go walk along the cliffs.”

“All right, but it has to be a short one. I’m meeting Amélie in an hour.”

 ********  
“I had the strangest dream last night,” Jack said as he watched Martha leave after lunch. Rose had gone with Mrs. Fitzpatrick someplace and her absence had put John in a foul mood.

He and John finished their tea in the quiet after Martha’s departure and before Rupert came to check their progress. Fitzpatrick knew his stuff, Jack gave him that, but he was impatient. It didn’t fit well with horses.

“Oh?” John said. Jack thought he saw something flash behind John’s eyes, an acknowledgement of the strangeness of dreams, maybe.

“I dreamt I was in London with a woman. Beautiful, fancy. We were gonna…” spend the rest of their lives together. He clearly remembered her saying that. But knew he couldn’t.

Jack cleared his throat. Those feelings clashed-jarred-clattered with his feelings for Martha. But he couldn’t tell John that; he’d promised Martha before they arrived here he wouldn’t do anything to cause her scandal. Even if spending every night away from her physically hurt.

“But I couldn’t die.” Jack hadn’t meant to say that. He was going to work around that part of the dream.

“Really?” John looked interested now, as if a scientist studying a specimen. “Why not?”

“Dunno.” He shrugged. “Just knew I couldn’t. But it was how I survived The Great War.”

“Jack,” John said quietly. “We survived because we were damned lucky.”

“I know.” Jack nodded. He remembered that, being there with John—Ypres, The Somme, Verdun. Mud and muck and mustard gas. Death and dying and screaming. So much screaming.

“Though I did start that football match between us and the Krauts during Christmas,” John said in what Jack recognized was his brother’s way of deflecting horrible memories and trying to cheer him up. It almost worked.

“You did not,” Jack retorted, feeling some of the suffocating pressure lift from his chest.

“Course I did.” John laughed, his voice sounding strangely Manchester-like for a moment, but then he shuddered. He looked in the distance, down the drive where Rose had disappeared hours ago with Mrs. Fitzpatrick. Jealousy sliced through Jack, though he knew John only sought the one being in the whole of the universe who made him feel again.

Jack looked, too, toward the cottage where Martha’s figure just disappeared to. Wanted Martha. Wanted to let her know what she meant to him. _(Before it was too late, before he lost her, before she lived her life without him.)_ But the words dried up. He wasn’t as smooth or as talkative as John, and didn’t know how to tell Martha all she was to him. 

And all she couldn’t be. An interracial marriage? Not in this world.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and Martha plan to keep their men, and their country, safe; despite all their hard work, it’s still the little things you forget when you’re not in your own time. (Possessive!Doctor)  
> Thanks to Kilodalton for beta-ing!

They were running out of time.

It beat through her—out of time. Out of time. Out of Time. Out. Of. Time.

No, it didn’t just _beat_ through her, it surrounded her. Held her in its grip and tightened-tightened-tightened. Further and further until she couldn’t breathe and was afraid to move. Screamed through her.

Rose tried pushing it away—she and Martha walked miles since talking with Amélie. They walked and plotted and planned and still it wasn’t enough. Off and wrong and still it constricted around her, suffocating.

_(Running out of time.)_

Restless. Even when she was exhausted it drummed through her. To the beat of her heart, to John’s heart, the double beat of theirs together.

The moment she and John were even moderately alone, Rose attacked him with teeth and tongue and desperate hands and demanding mouth. He seemed to understand. Or feel it, too.

_(Running out of time.)_

Maybe a remnant of the Doctor remained and his (much lauded) Time Sense had worked its way into John’s subconscious. Or maybe it was her—her restless energy and her quivering need to be close to him, to feel and touch and closer-closer-closer. To make love to him until she collapsed.

_(Running out of time.)_

Rose didn’t know but knew that the storm approached and it promised ends to everything. She just didn’t know if it meant the end of this adventure. The end of John. The end of them. The end of their close-knit family. Or just her paranoid worries.

 _(The Beast lied. A storm’s approaching. Never say never ever. It lied How long you going to stay with me?_ **Forever.** )

But it continued to flutter through her heart and blood and along her nerves and no matter what she did to calm herself and restrain the fear, it never fully left her.

“Get some sleep, my heart,” John whispered into her hair. His heart thundered beneath her ear and his arms tightened around her as he pulled her even closer against him. “I’ll be here in the morning.”

“I know,” Rose managed. “I know.”

And though her limbs were far too loose and heavy to hold her and her body continued to hum with desire and sated arousal, her mind raced. Reached for their connection and let the soothing silver-blue envelope her.

It was almost enough to keep the nightmares at bay. Nightmares where she didn’t find the Doctor. Where the stars went out until nothing was left. Where humanity was enslaved by aliens or had wiped themselves out through war and famine.

Where even John’s arms and warmth and love and connection weren’t enough to keep the nightmares at bay. Where she jumped and there was no Doctor in the universe. Or the Doctor had died. Or she’d been too late and the all of creation had ended.

It was almost enough to keep her nightmares at bay.

 ******  
Day 35:**  
Thursday, 26 March 1936. They had 17 days until Easter Sunday and were no closer to figuring out a plan to help Amélie, stop a potential invasion, or find where Torchwood had scurried off to.

That didn’t even count tracking the hunters. 

Rose and Martha sat in the kitchen, old newspapers spread over the table and floor, their third pot of tea and a plate of shortbread between them. Across the table and half the counter were various hair care products. Rose’s blonde hair didn’t come naturally and Martha’s straightened hair had, in a few short weeks, begun to grow out.

“Where did you find coconut oil in St. Margaret’s?” Martha asked as she guided Rose into the application of said oil.

“Bill Banks.” Rose gently pulled the comb through Martha’s hair; the coconut oil made the comb slide smoothly through and she found the activity soothing. It nearly helped with the nerves jittering in her stomach.

Though her Gallifreyan marriage pendant still lay warm and reassuring nested between her breasts, Rose felt oddly bereft without her wedding ring, but she hadn’t wanted to get dye on it. Even though she was fairly certain whatever metal it was made from was human hair dye resistant. Rose had put the band in her inner pocket with the fob watch.

They were both dressed in old clothes—Rose in one of John’s shirts and a pair of the loose fitting pants she’d grown to love and Martha in one of Jack’s shirts and another pair of the loose trousers. Not exactly the leisure wear they were used to, but Rose didn’t mind.

And if John’s scent surrounded her even while he was out, well no one but her needed to know she’d done that on purpose.

Her own hair was twisted under a makeshift shower cap as the hair dye set. Even the small St. Margaret’s market had a bottle of a lovely honey-blonde.

“Whatever Jack is doing at the pub every Saturday night, he’s made the entire village love him.” Rose separated another lock of hair and worked the coconut oil and comb through. “Apparently the village is willing to do anything for Jack—and his family.”

Martha snorted. “I’m not surprised.” She shook her head but abruptly stopped when the comb pulled. “Even as This Jack he can charm everyone. He charmed my mum, after all.”

Both women ignored the note of bitterness in Martha’s tone, though it tugged at Rose’s heart to see her friend in such pain. The emotional roller coaster Martha had ridden since arriving here had left her torn and drained.

Since their chat with Amélie, Martha had focused almost single-mindedly on that problem. But Rose couldn’t help but notice the drawn-drained-empty look on Martha’s face every morning. Or how she and Jack left right after dinner. Together.

“When I asked about it for you,” and Rose had been very specific about that, perversely gauging Banks’s reaction, “he was all too happy to send to London for it.”

Winston purred and jumped onto the table, somehow managing not to knock anything over. Martha reached forward and scooped him up, giving him a hard cuddle before placing him back on the floor. It wasn’t the first time he’d objected to their ignoring him today.

“Huh.” Martha said, but then sat quietly for a bit. “Maybe 1936 isn’t so bad,” she added quietly. “There are always those kinds of people, even in our time. But then there are those who don’t seem to care.”

“Maybe Jack talks highly about you at the pub,” Rose offered. Neither woman knew what happened there; John flatly refused to go with his ‘brother’ to spy (er, keep an eye) on Jack.

Martha snorted. “He’s too busy hiding our affair or whatever he’s calling it.”

Rose stilled. She wanted to ask about Martha’s feelings toward Jack. When they’d first arrived, she’d been jealous of Martha—her friend hadn’t needed to worry about being married to a man who didn’t remember the wonderful life they shared. Or falling in love with a different man who was still her Doctor.

_**Still hers.** _

_(He’s gone. The Doctor's gone. He’s left me, mum. He’s left me, mum. And you, Rose Tyler, fat lot of good you were. You gave up on me.)_

Given time and adjustment, Rose no longer envied Martha. Her heart broke for her friend and the confused relationship she currently had with Jack.

Steadying her hands, Rose continued to comb the coconut oil through Martha’s hair. She wanted to ask what, if anything, Jack had said to her about their affair, their situation, the nightmares. _Especially_ after the strange nightmares the three of them seemed to have. Rose hadn’t had any or no _new_ nightmares at least.

Just her normal ones of not finding the Doctor in time and the entire multi-verse ceasing to exist.

Try as she might, no matter how far back she shoved her fears of the Doctor leaving, of being trapped in the other universe, of never finding him on her cannon jumps, of the world ending because of the stars going out and her failing, Rose still had those fears.

Her nightmares reminded her of that on a regular basis.

Even when she was so thoroughly sated from making love to John, and the possessive eroticism she craved, she was never exhausted enough for those nightmares to skip over her. On the other hand, when she was so aroused during the day all she thought about was finding John and begging him to finish what he’d started, she didn’t think on the past, the fears, the vague possibilities that they’d be torn apart again.

All Rose thought about was her lover. His hands on her body. His mouth bringing her to such pleasure that the line between the Doctor and John disappeared. His teeth closing around her nipples, her clit, the soft skin of her hips and breasts.

Even now she had bruises she’d never trade. John’s fingers on her thighs, holding her still as he built up her orgasm only to make her wait. And beg. His teeth on her neck and arms and thighs and hips. The tenderness of her arse from the erotic spanking he’d given her just last night, the memory of which even now sent shivers of need clenching through her.

Clearing her throat, she concentrated on the here and now.

Licking her lips, Rose worked another dollop of oil into Martha’s hair, teeth chewing on her lower lip. “Is he still?” Rose asked softly, ignoring the nightmares for the moment.

“I don’t know.” Martha sighed. “I don’t know if he’s hiding us because of the time, because he’s ashamed, because someone said something against me, or just because.” Martha shifted on the chair and rubbed her eyes. “I just don’t know anymore.” She took a deep breath and asked, “Did you get those books on Germany secret operations from the TARDIS?”

Rose readily accepted the change of subject. They only had five weeks left to their time here, assuming nothing happened to accelerate that timetable.

“I only found two,” Rose admitted with a sigh. Concern ate through her at how forlorn and lonely the TARDIS felt when she’d finally managed to get away the other day and visit. “Either the TARDIS didn’t want us to know the intimate history of what we’re about to do or She didn’t have enough power.”

Rose had declined all tea invitations from Amélie while she and Martha worked on a plan to get Amélie out of the web in which she’d managed to entangle herself. Plus it gave them time to have a girl’s day in. Two hours until lunch, then the afternoon for reading and planning.

And maybe a nap. Neither she nor Martha had any explanation for her constant tiredness, but Rose knew she wasn’t pregnant.

Though she’d been incredibly late, she’d gotten her period. John hadn’t said anything when she’d woken with cramps, and the interesting new world of pre-tampon living. But Rose knew he was disappointed. She was…Rose didn’t know, and had so far successfully ignored her feelings on the matter.

Sad—she and the Doctor wanted children.  
Relieved—she’d been through a DNA tweaking specifically so she could carry Time Lord children. So the Doctor would no longer be the only one.  
Confused and concerned and scared—with everything going on, Torchwood, hunters, Nazis, did she want a child now?

And that made her very seriously think, about their lifestyle and keeping a child (children—just how many did either of them want?) safe.

Rose added that to the ever expanding list of things she and the Doctor needed to discuss. Standing behind Martha, she shifted just enough to feel the weight of the fob watch and wedding ring against her thigh.

Comfort and reassurance and 45 days left.

“Hand me the towel,” Rose said as she set the comb down. They still had ten minutes for her hair and an hour for Martha’s. Wrapping the towel around the other woman’s hair, Rose slipped the clips into place.

Rounding the table, she sat opposite Martha and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I still don’t think we should call Sarah,” she said.

“I agree. But we have to do something.” Martha sighed and picked up a shortbread, nibbling on the edge. “We only have a little time left before Easter. And I don’t trust Amélie not to panic and tell her IRA friends that she tried to sell them out.”

The look Martha gave her echoed Rose’s thoughts—the chances of Amélie getting cold feet were too great to dally long over this plan. The deep sigh and the way Martha’s fingers plucked at tablecloth echoed Rose’s own fear and concern and anxiousness over the whole situation.

Martha licked her lips and let her head fall against the back of the chair before instantly jerking it upright. With an apologetic grin, she checked the towel was still in place. “I’m worried about the TARDIS. When I went to visit this morning, She felt tired.”

“She misses him,” Rose agreed. She knew exactly how the TARDIS felt. “They’re connected, so the longer he’s John and not the Doctor, the more it hurts Her. I think the Doctor hoped these 3 months would be enough. Anything more and I don’t know how either would survive.”

Martha chewed on the shortbread in silence for a minute. “Three months,” she repeated quietly. “I should be taking my exams now. When he first asked me to take a trip, the Doctor promised to return me the next morning.” She shook her head and focused on Rose with a half-smile. “I guess he did. That morning he dropped Jack and me off in my flat while the two of you reacquainted yourselves,” she waggled her eyebrows and grinned, “was the morning after he picked me up.”

Martha grimaced and laughed. “Not picked me up—oh, you know what I mean.”

Rose laughed and marveled at the strong friendship that had developed between the two of them. She’d been so jealous of Martha when she’d returned. Not because she thought the Doctor had moved on so quickly after her disappearance (well, maybe. Just a little.) But because of the time the other woman had shared with the Doctor when Rose had not. Could not.

Now they were joking about pick-up lines.

Rose worried her ring finger, bare for the moment. She hadn’t worn the ring long, but already felt naked without it.

“Do you think,” Martha asked, “that now, after meeting my family and visiting Sarah Jane for tea every week or so, he’s keeping to the same time?”

“Like keeping our timeline parallel to theirs?” Rose tilted her head to the side as she thought about it. She brought her thumb up to her mouth to chew on the already damaged cuticle when Martha swatted at her. 

“Stop chewing!”

“Sorry, mum.” Rose grinned. But she dutifully folded her hands around her teacup instead. “Possibly. Especially since Tish and your mum are calling more often. And even little Keisha knows Aunt Martha is traveling and wants to video chat.”

Martha nodded thoughtfully and looked down. “I’ve missed my exams.” She took a deep breath and set her half-eaten shortbread on the plate. “Still,” she added in a voice that tried, and almost succeeded, in being optimistic. “I did take that leave of absence.”

“Still undecided as to what field you want?” Rose asked quietly, studying her friend. “Or do you think you still want general practice?”

Martha shook her head, smiled, and started to reply. Then her head jerked up from her intense contemplation of the newspaper-covered table, eyes wide, face a mask of horror. In a low, almost strangled voice she said, “Condoms.”

Rose looked at Martha as if she’d spouted another head. Then she looked at her with equal horror. “Oh, God.” Her voce hitched. “Oh, God. Are you pregnant?”

“No.” Martha shook her head emphatically but the look on her face screamed fear and uncertainty. “I don’t think so,” she said in a rush, her words tumbling over themselves. “No. No, I’m not. I already had my period,” she said emphatically. “I’m not. But I don’t want to be, either. Not now, now like this. And certainly not when Jack barely remembers me.”

“Have you seen him every night?” Rose asked, as calmly as she could. Admittedly not very, not with the way her heart tripped over itself.

But she chose her words carefully, not wanting to panic either of them more than they already were. They should be alone in their cottage—Jack and John were working, of course, but people had a tendency of popping in for a bit and Rose didn’t want to spread rumors or scandalize the area, or worse—ostracize Martha.

_Keep them safe._

“No.” Martha grimaced. Anger and sorrow and hurt and longing. “I told him I didn’t want to take the risk with getting caught.”

“But I thought you said Jack thinks you two have this long term affair?”

“Long term affair or not, I don’t want to be pregnant right now.” Martha took a deep breath but her panic seeped into her voice. “And I don’t know what Jack would even do if I told this him I was. And,” her voice grew thinner as she struggled for air, “I don’t know if that damned Chameleon Arch wiped out Jack’s super-duper birth control thingy!”

The timer buzzed. Both of them jumped, scattering newspaper and shortbread crumbs over the floor. Winston attacked the crumbs with military precision.

Rose stood, legs not as stead as she’d have liked, and crossed to the mechanical timer. Fingers shaking, Martha’s words swirling in her head like a storm, Rose fumbled with it and finally turned it off. She stared at Martha, hands still shaking, and unwrapped the towel from her head.

In a daze, Rose walked to the sink where Martha proceeded to rinse the dye out of her hair. Even with her eyes closed and her own fingers gripping the counter, Rose knew Martha’s fingers shook.

Wrapping a clean towel around her wet hair, Rose stood from the sink and squeezed the excess water from her hair. “You’re not, though?” Martha shook her head. “All right. We’ll ask the TARDIS for something.”

“I don’t want to burden Her.” Martha’s voice cracked. “Okay, maybe I do. Just a little. Just for this.”

Rose shared her friend’s weak laugh. “Maybe a short term injection like Jack had.”

Martha nodded but it didn’t escape Rose’s notice that her hands had drifted to hover over her belly. Her fingers curled into loose fists as she fought the impulse to cover her own belly. No. She wasn’t pregnant. And doubted she’d be able to become so with a fully human child.

Not now.

“I know Jack loves you,” Rose said instead. This was about Martha. Not her and her fears-concerns-worries. “Even if…he wouldn’t abandon you. He doesn’t love easily,” Rose added as she tried to sooth Martha. Herself. Both of them. “Sex is one thing but deep affection… love? No. And he’s told you about his past.”

Martha slowly nodded and bit by bit the tension in her shoulders eased. “Pieces, yes. And a bit more here; I think his memories are bleeding through and this him is remembering people and events as if they happened in the war. Some of his family. His brother. A bit about the Time Agency.”

Rose nodded and reset the timer for 45 minutes for Martha’s hair. That didn’t leave them much time before lunch and the still needed to come up with a plan for the Blueshirts.

“We’ll visit the TARDIS after lunch.” Rose promised and was relieved to see Martha nod in agreement, calmer now. “Until then, we need to figure out what to do about this potential invasion.”

“I’ve been thinking.” Martha picked up her half-eaten shortbread. “Is there a Home Guard here? Or yet?”

“I don’t know.” Rose shrugged, grateful for this change in subject. “I don’t know when they came about. After World War I or during World War II?”

“History isn’t my strong point. If it wasn’t medical,” Martha admitted, “or awesome literature like Shakespeare or Harry Potter, I didn’t care.”

“And all mine,” Rose sighed, “was formed after I met the Doctor. If it wasn’t the last five years’ worth of football scores, no one on the estate talked about it.”

Martha snickered. “Oh, we’re a pair!”

“Sad,” Rose agreed. “But I don’t think there’s a Home Guard. If there was, we’d have seen it by now.”

“You’d think, but I have no idea.” Martha tapped her finger against her cheek. “From what Jack and John said, the army isn’t prepared for an invasion, either.”

“No, there are two groups: Those who expect war with Germany and those who think the Nazis will pass us over.” Rose sank her chin against her hand and frowned. “Nothing happens here until they invade Poland, right?”

“I think so,” Martha agreed uncertainly. “The bottom line is: that doesn’t help us and we still need a way to avert a potential invasion.”

“UNIT isn’t formed until the 1960s,” Rose said and unwound the towel from her hair. She grabbed the comb she’d used on Martha and started to detangle her own hair.

“We could ask Torchwood,” Martha joked with a weary sigh.

Rose stilled.

“I was joking,” Martha hastily added. “I trust them about as much as I trust Amélie.”

“If I thought we could keep Jack hidden, and never ever mention John or have _his_ photo taken,” Rose hedged, “then maybe. They do have the resources.”

She already knew Touchwood lurked somewhere—maybe they’d already taken the Doctor’s photo. Damn. They needed to find them and destroy all evidence.

“They do, but what’s to say they’ll use those resources to stop a Nazi invasion?” Martha shook her head, adamant now. “No. They may be all about Queen and Country…or King in this case, but no.”

“No, you’re right.” Rose nodded. Then scowled. “Who does that leave us with?”

“Besides us?” Martha rolled her shoulders and looked at the ceiling as if it miraculously had their answers. Then she looked at Rose, who stared back with equal conviction.

“The town,” they said.

Rose started to grin. “I doubt very much the fine people of St. Margaret’s want either these renegade IRA or the Nazis on their doorstep.”

“And I’m certain Bill Banks and his friends have arms hidden in their homes.”

“And,” Rose said with as much excitement as Martha. “They’ll fight.”

“The only problem I see,” Martha said, though her enthusiasm remained undiminished, “is how to tell them about this.”

“Right.” Rose slouched in her chair then sat up and drummed her fingers on the table. “It can’t be Amélie. Too suspicious.”

“And there’s no way we can convince Rupert or Banks about the invasion—they’ll never believe us.” Martha sighed and stood. She wandered to the window, lightly slapping her hands against the counter. “It’ll have to be Jack.”

“What do you mean?” Rose asked.

“We’ll have to convince Jack there’s a credible threat. Banks trusts him; Jack’ll tell Banks, rally the troops, and…” Martha trialed off. “Wait. No. I don’t want him involved if it means Torchwood hears of him.”

“And they will,” Rose said softly. “You know as well as I do that they haven’t left. They’re sneaking around somewhere. Waiting. Hiding. Spying. But even if Jack can convince Banks, how will we convince _Jack_?”

Martha sucked in a breath and puffed out her cheeks then released it slowly. “I’ll convince him,” she said softly. “I’ll do it. It’s the only way.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” Martha admitted. “But I need to. Once I do, and the village is behind us, then maybe…” she trailed off.

“Then maybe,” Rose added, already seeing where Martha’s plan headed, “it’ll flush out Torchwood.”

“Exactly.” Martha’s grin was fierce and far from happy. “Your job is to convince John to go to the pub Saturday night when Jack tells Banks and friends.”

Rose had no idea how she’d manage that on so specific a night when she hadn’t managed to it so far, but nodded.

( _Don’t leave me_ and holding tight and _I love you_ and keep him safe.)

“All right. Yeah. Okay.” Rose nodded and fetched the pair of German secret operations books the TARDIS had directed her to. “This’ll work.”

“And if it doesn’t,” Martha said and grabbed a book. “We’ve still got 17 days left to think of something else.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gifts from the heart. An honest confession. An averted invasion. (Possessive!Doctor) And a moderately NSFW scene. (Additional historical notes at the end)  
>   
> Medical notes awesomeness, as well as a great beta-ing, by the talented Kilodalton!

**Day 40**  
Martha pressed her palms against her eyes and tried to calm her racing thoughts. She needed to focus.

She’d spoken to Jack and had convinced him her information had merit. He hadn’t believed her. Not at first. Not that Martha blamed him.

She’d worked her way around how she knew, gossip she’d claimed; no one pays attention to the black maid walking alone from the market. She’d been proud she hadn’t flinched, and when Jack had, a piece of the icy wall coating her heart chipped and melted.

But Martha stuck with her story—she’d overheard them and had followed them. No, she didn’t know what they’d looked like; they’d worn hats and scarves, but they’d definitely been Irish.

Jack had watched her. Martha’s paranoia felt as if he’d waited for her to let him in on the joke or see if she broke and admitted it was made up, a story she’d invented for attention or something equally stupid.—or worse that she was involved in the invasion somehow. But then he’d nodded. Whatever he thought or felt or believed, he nodded and told Martha he’d let the boys at the pub know and they’d take care of it.

Jack and Bill Banks and friends were now quietly patrolling a several kilometer radius of St. Margaret’s at Cliffe. If word had spread about any of this, she’d not heard. Then again, if word had spread maybe those few IRA blokes would leave. Abandon the whole concept.

As that seemed highly unlikely, and Martha knew they weren’t that lucky, the entire family was on edge.

Rose spent her time either grilling Amélie for more information about who these people were, how many, where she thought they were hiding, and any ancillary information they may have let slip.

John never let Rose out of his sight except to very reluctantly work with the horses. Whatever he told Rupert Fitzgerald in order to come home every couple hours Martha didn’t know, but Rupert didn’t seem to so much as blink at it.

Maybe Rupert was in on the patrols. Martha didn’t know. The men were keeping mum about it—bloody typical.

John’s eyes were darker, more Doctor-like than the almost lighter John who smiled and laughed and spent all his time with Rose. The lines around his mouth were harsher. The tension in his shoulders made him look stiff and ready to attack at any moment. This John reminded Martha of New York and Daleks and his very obvious desire to simply die.

She shook those memories off. The Doctor mourning a lost Rose was not the same as John clearly protecting his wife. As someone who’d witnessed both Doctors, Martha decided she was an expert on such things. And Rose had said that while he never mentioned anything about the patrols and threats, John made love to her every night as if terrified to let her go.

From the blush tinting her friend’s cheeks as she’d admitted that, Martha knew the dark-possessive-dominance had not faded. Nor had Rose’s need to feel John, either.

Martha missed that eroticism and role playing from her and Jack’s sex life. Such as that current sex life was.

But she had far too many things to worry about. Because Jack was the complete opposite of John. Once she’d convinced Jack of the validity of such an invasion (a surprisingly easy feat despite her worries and planned words and fears he’d think her mad and scoff at her and walk away) Jack had quietly accepted the possibility of invasion and had gone to work.

It made Martha’s head spin. All spinny and fast and mad and twisty-twirly.

Shaking her head, Martha returned to her journal, and Rose’s medical charts and the medical books Martha’d taken from the TARDIS. Staring at the half-filled page, Martha continued with her observations, the only thing she had here and now.

_Rose continues to report fatigue. She requires more sleep than normal despite the addition of 2 bananas daily and beets with every meal. The average duration of her afternoon naps is 33 minutes to 2 hours 5 minutes, etiology unclear and duration is labile (see chart previous page)._

_When questioned about her period, Rose endorsed that it was late and heavier than normal with atypical cramping, with moderate pain 6/10. Hot tea and a continually heated flannel helped reduce pain to 3/10. Given unclear physiologic changes, I’m hesitant to introduce any medication. Without a full examination, I’m unable to identify the etiology of the cramps._

_( **Personal note:** I absolutely do not believe this to be a miscarriage, simply a byproduct of the changes the Doctor did to prepare her body to carry a Time Lord child. I doubt even the Doctor knows the full extent of changes to Rose’s body. Despite his medical knowledge on the subject, he admitted to me that Time Lords weren’t prone to ‘mingling’ with ‘lesser species’ let alone procreating with them.)_

_Rose has exhibited no further aversion to being touched by anyone save the Doctor (John). That one time pre-Midnight with Jack seems to be an isolated incident. Perhaps her skin was merely overly sensitized due to the treatments? She showed no physical signs when the medics on Midnight touched her or when I held her hand._

Martha stopped. To be fair, Rose had had other problems then, what with the screaming and the curled into a ball and the whimpering pain. She’d been in no real position to tell Martha if being touched had hurt. 

_Further observation is required, as is a translation of the medical texts the Doctor has. I’ll speak to the TARDIS once She’s fully awake to see about those translations. Until then, I’ll continue to monitor Rose’s heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, weight, food intake, and moods. (See charts beginning of this journal)_

Martha read over her handwritten observations again. Oh, she had plenty to add—like _How to Never Plan a Pregnancy During a Crisis Without Sophisticated Medical Equipment Readily Available_. But this was her medical journal and she fully intended the Time Lord to read it once he was being Time Lordy again and not human.

She tapped her fountain pen on the table, careful not to leak ink all over her pages. Using the old-fashioned writing utensil made her feel like she was at Hogwarts.

As she saw it, Martha had 2 paths before her. The one she’d planned for herself and the one that had formed the moment she’d met the Doctor. Go back to Earth, take her exams, become a doctor for humanity.

Or stay with her new family and be the first (only) doctor to study a human-Gallifreyan pregnancy. To keep mother and baby safe. To learn about other alien cultures and know how to treat them.

To find her own path. Oh, she still wanted to be a doctor, but the possibilities now lay before here were endless and endlessly wonderful.

Winston jumped onto the low table she’d used in the parlor and soft-pawed at her papers. He didn’t scratch or hiss, as if he knew these were too important for him to destroy.

Martha picked him up and held him close, the soft warmth of him doing more to ease her tension than journaling. Between Amélie’s less than helpful ignorance of the plan to invade Broad Oak and the tension in the cottage now that Jack and John knew at least some of the truth as to what was happening, she needed the unconditional affection from their cat.

“Are you busy?”

Martha looked up and smiled at Jack, looking uncertain and nervous in the doorway. He tugged at his collar then smoothed his hands down his shirt front only to tug at his sleeves. His accent no longer startled her. Much.

Setting Winston on the floor beside her, she ran her hand once more down his back before very calmly closing her journal and stacking Rose’s medical notes in a neat pile beneath it. Not one word peaked out or gave away what they truly were.

“Just…” Martha shook her head and picked Winston back up. “Not busy.”

Not for you.

She’d envied Rose having her lover still hers—the Doctor might be human, but he still remembered marrying Rose and loving her and sure as hell wasn’t afraid to show the world that love. Jack, despite the last several days, was still not the Jack she’d fallen for.

He cleared his throat, a nervous hesitation. “I ah…I um, brought you something.”

He held out a red leather-bound book. Martha stood from the floor and cautiously took it; Jack looked ready to run all the way back to London if she made too sudden a move.

“ _Plastic Surgery of the Face_ by Harold Delf Gilles.” Curious, Martha looked up at Jack.

“I, uh…Bill.” Jack cleared his throat. “I had Bill send away for it. It’s not new, Dr. Gilles wrote that after…well, after the war. But I thought. Well, I know you have an interest in medicine, and I thought you’d like it.”

Martha had no idea who Harold Gilles was or what he’d done during World War I, but the very thought of the book touched her. Throat closed with gratitude and awe and (maybe just a little) love, she closed the distance between them and hugged Jack.

“Thank you,” she whispered in the beat before kissing him. “I love it.”

He grinned down at her, and for an instant, Martha thought she saw the twinkling-teasing-warmth of her Jack’s electric blue gaze. And then he kissed her and her heart stumbled. Confused. Muddled. Tangled up and torn.

Which was her Jack? And did it matter anymore?

******  
Day 43**  
Rose chewed her thumb nail. She knew she was doing it, and knew she needed to stop, but right now she needed to concentrate. Picking at her poor thumb’s cuticle did the job.

“Beach, cliffs, farm, village,” Rose muttered. And if Touchwood was caught in this web of her making all the better.

Because they weren’t gone. They lurked in the shadows, hiding and waiting and watching, ready to pounce and destroy. But where were they?

Not in the village; someone would’ve said so by now. Dover was too far for Torchwood to adequately spy on Jack. While there were other villages and farms in the area, it made no sense for them to be so far from Broad Oak. From their target.

So where in hell were they?

_Keep the Doctor safe. Keep Jack safe._

Rose traced her finger along the shoreline, mind whirling. Were they camping out along the cliffs? The guard St. Margaret’s had assembled would’ve surely found them by now. Closer to home? In one of the abandoned buildings on Broad Oak?

Her stomach dropped. What if they found the TARDIS?

No. They hadn’t or this place would now be swarming with Touchwood out for both Jack and the Doctor. No, they hadn’t found Her. Pinching the bridge of her nose, Rose stared at the map as if she did so hard enough, all her questions would miraculously have answers.

“When did you learn to strategize so damn well?”

John’s voice startled her and Rose jerked against the table. “Ow,” she muttered and rubbed her hip. He’d crossed the room in quick strides, hand running down her waist to her hip though it didn’t really hurt.

He smelt as if he’d just come from the stables and the scent flowed around her. Home and safe and comfort and John. His black work boots settled heavy over the worn kitchen tiles, as he stepped in quick strides to close the distance between them.

Concern shone in his eyes, but deeper, the heavy brown showed her his restraint. The anger and helplessness and burning curiosity. But not mistrust. Never that. His trust in her moved hot and heavy, settling around her heart until it hurt to breathe with the magnitude of it.

Trust between them had been swift and sure, a moment of hand holding and running and saving each other’s lives. It had only truly cracked that once (Versailles and distance and fears) but after that they’d shore it up with honesty and openness.

Rose knew, in that moment, she needed to be as open and honest with John as she’d have been with the Doctor.

John’s hand was gentle and probing along her hip, the other curling unerringly over the marriage tattoo on her arm. John never mentioned it, but on an almost primal level seemed to understand it existed. The touch, through the two layers of clothing she wore, was enough to send sharp tingles of arousal though her and Rose leaned further into him.

_Mine. Rose. Love._

She didn’t hear those words-sentiments-feelings so much as know them intimately as he held her. Their link pulsed strong and sure between them, connecting them in ways that still awed her. Comforted and assured and treasured her.

His eyes were no longer the laughing light ones of John as he planned a future with her, their children, a farm, and painting. Now he looked down at her with a concerned darkness lurking just beneath the surface.

She’d seen that look in haunted blue eyes after they’d returned to Earth from the year 5 billion with _I'm the only survivor. I'm left travelling on my own 'cos there's no one else._ She’d see it in brown eyes, so dark against his pale, freckled face as he told her he’d burned up a sun just so he could say goodbye.

“How’d you hear about these rebels?” John asked.

It wasn’t the first time he’d wanted to know, but Rose had put him off, uncertain about his reaction. Now she licked her lips and told him. Because she needed to, and needed to trust him, and though Martha was excellent at keeping things in line and on schedule, Rose simply needed to tell the man she loved more than anything this bare truth.

As she did, his eyes darkened further, his fingers gripped her tightly. Closer. Pulling her to him, against him, into him as if he could enfold her in his warm embrace and shelter her from the storm brewing around them.

His shirt rough beneath her hands, her gaze even and steady on his, she told him everything about Amélie and the Blueshirts, but absolutely nothing about Torchwood and her icy clawing fears about his capture and death. Rose didn’t even want to think how the universe would compensate.

She had a feeling that paradoxes and reapers would be the least of her worries.

Rose finished her story but John stood perfectly still, gaze molten brown, jaw clenched, stance so rigid she was afraid to touch him lest he break. With infinite care, Rose slipped her hand into his. Wanted to pull him to her and hug him. For reassurance and promise and hope.

“I wanted you to befriend her—” he cut himself off with a strangled intake of breath.

“It’s not your fault,” Rose insisted. She grabbed his jaw and forced him to look at her. “You didn’t know. Couldn’t know. I doubt Rupert knows. She fooled everyone. The entire village.”

“She endangered you.” It was an unsympathetic growl, a statement of fact that brewed and boiled and threatened to erupt.

Well, yes, but Rose wasn’t going to acknowledge that. He’d explode. And she didn’t know what he’d be afterwards. “She’s scared,” Rose told him softly. “She’s scared and alone and in way over her head.”

“She endangered you,” John repeated.

“John, if I wasn’t here, if I hadn’t gone to tea with her and befriended her, then none of us would’ve known about this plan.” She squeezed his hand and infused their bond with all the love and assurance she could. “Then were would we all be?”

His mouth thinned and the dimples that showed when he was angry stood out in sharp contrast. But John only nodded sharply.

With piercing realization, Rose also acknowledged the stark truth yawning before her. John accepted her reasons; that she’d done this, all of it, to protect not just herself and him, not just their family, but the surrounding village and people.

The Doctor often commented on her compassion, but more often did so on her jeopardy friendliness. John, it seemed, accepted her in ways the Doctor didn’t. The take control, take action woman she’d become when she’d been lost in the other world.

Since returning to him, Rose had fallen back into her usual position. But now, with the threat to her lover, she’d taken charge as much as she could without letting either the village or Torchwood know who she was and what she was capable of.

She knew the Doctor loved her, accepted her, but he wanted to swoop in and save the day. And since her return here, she’d let him. Mostly.

But so much had changed, and Rose knew she needed the Doctor to see those changes in her as well as John. Because she couldn’t be the little blonde assistant any longer. She’d learned and grown and she wasn’t going to let anyone, not even the man she loved more than life itself, change that about her.

Rose knew how better to protect herself and those she loved.

Protect the man she loved more than her own life.

“I need you safe.”

“My love,” Rose breathed, gathering him close and wrapping herself around him. She said nothing about taking care of herself or keeping him safe or seeing to the safety and well-being of her family. “You do keep me safe. And I am.”

The storm crashed over them, ruthless and inflexible and John kissed her, hands lifting her to the table where her notes and maps lay spread out. He pushed her against it, and Rose let him.

Felt the rough wool of his trousers against her soft inner thighs. Tasted the desperate need—passion and desire yes, but need for her protection, need to shelter her, need to wrap her up and keep her with him.

Always.

“You’re damn sexy when you take charge,” John said, lips on hers.

Rose breathed out a laugh, and hiked her skirt around her hips, legs wrapping around him to bring him closer. She leaned back on the table and arched her hips against his. “Remember that,” she whispered, teeth scraping over the side of his neck.

He shuddered beneath her touch. “Rose Tyler,” he breathed in that way the Doctor said her name, tongue wrapping around each syllable. “I remember every single moment with you, my heart.”

Then his mouth was on hers, hard and taking and Rose didn’t surrender, not this time. She needed this affirmation and passion and his touch and…all of it. All of him.

Her hands tugged at his dirt, sweaty shirt, fingers desperate to touch flesh. Her mouth met his, that hard and demanding and possessive kiss taking and giving and oh so desperate.

John jerked against her and Rose shuddered, fingers abandoning his back and the stubborn shirt that refused to yield his skin in favor of stroking his cock. John nipped down her neck, his own fingers deft on the buttons to her blouse, as she cupped him through his trousers.

“Harkness!”

The shout reverberated through the cottage, stilling them with a violent jerk, but not breaking them apart. Rose swore she knew the voice, but only knew John-lust-love.

“We have them,” Rupert Fitzgerald thundered.

********  
John glared at Rose. She’d steadfastly ignored his order to stay back and out of this and now stood proudly defiant between the small group of traitors and he, Jack, Rupert, and Bill Banks. Martha, strangely confident and equally defiant Martha, stood beside her, arms crossed.

“We are not executing them!” Rose snapped.

John growled. Honestly, he didn’t care about the five Irishmen. He didn’t care that their supposed invasion was poorly planned and if the Nazis really were in league with these Blueshirt fascists, John doubted they did more than encourage this plan. Certainly not actively support it with money, weapons, or men.

It didn’t matter. Because they’d endangered Rose.

_They’d endangered Rose._

They’d put his wife and his love— _his entire world_ —in danger. John didn’t care they had no idea who she was when they began this plan. He didn’t care they were using Amélie and Rose happened in on their stupidly shortsighted and reckless plan.

He only cared about Rose. The entire world could burn so long as she was safe.

And he’d been to blame. It was his fault. In encouraging her to befriend Amélie, John had inadvertently placed his beloved wife in the line of fire. He’d not forgive himself for that. And while he’d keep Rose’s confidence about the other woman, he planned to have words with her. Threatening words.

His heart pounded with fear for Rose, and his fists curled in impotent rage and helpless anger at himself. Yet all John could now do was glare at his wife.

Stubborn, beautiful, willful. Until it put her in danger, he’d loved and admired all those aspects about her. Still did if he was honest with himself.

_(Once, just once, I’d like a companion who gets it…You set new records for jeopardy friendly.)_

“Mrs. Harkness,” Rupert began.

“No.” Rose snapped. She turned her impressive glare onto Rupert who did an admirable job of not quavering. “We are not judge, jury, and executioner.” She swallowed and John wondered if she knew a British court would definitely find these 5 men guilty and hang them.

He suspected she did.

_(I was the cause of one genocide. I won’t be the cause of another!)_

Despite his anger with himself and his fear for Rose’s safety, John needed to back Rose up.

Even with the desperate fear for her, the need to protect her from these Blueshirts and from the wrath of St. Margaret’s at being invaded, and from herself if need be. He needed to protect her and keep her close. Through their link, he felt her righteous anger and steadfast belief in justice.

John believed in her. In what she wanted to do though he didn’t necessarily agree with her. Rose offered a choice, and through his fear and own uncertain feelings on the matter, he couldn’t help the flush of pride at her conviction.

He knew she felt his pride in her through their bond.

He’d suffered through the knowing looks of the men on the farm, the crude sniggers about how he bowed to his wife. They didn’t understand who she was to him, what she’d done for him. They never could.

Rose saved him.

She’d held his hand and stayed with him and kept him sane. She was as brilliant as the sun, golden and striking and as all-encompassing. She was his. And he’d stand by her and protect her with his dying breath. He’d lay down his life for her, if that was what it took.

( _Please don’t let her remember this_ , he remembers thinking just before the pain became so unbearable he couldn’t hide it from her. _Please let her only remember how much I needed her. How much I loved her. How much I will still love her, even with a different face. It’ll be the same hearts. The two she holds._ )

John blinked and the image-thoughts-feelings-pain faded. But not his love.

Stepping forward, he turned to face the men still arguing with Rose over their version of mob justice. She and Martha refused to budge, and though his heart hurt with love and pride for her, he could see it as clearly as if it’d already played out before him.

Rupert and Bill would ignore her, and the violence in the other men’s stance, their fear and hatred would erupt. They’d lump Rose and Martha in with these men and kill them, too.

He needed to change their course of action.

John didn’t know how he saw it all, but knew with a cold, desperate certainty that if he didn’t stop them, Rose would die. He saw it play out all too clearly.

Terror clutched his heart, beat a frantic tattoo through his veins and settled icily in his belly. John tried to cut off those feelings from Rose, but knew he was unsuccessful. She knew, but didn’t move to either weaken her stance before these men or lessen his. He didn’t fear anyone in St. Margaret’s. Hell, he didn’t even fear these scared Blueshirt chaps huddled in a corner.

He couldn’t lose Rose.

“If we don’t turn them over to the proper authorities,” John said, his voice cutting through the escalating arguments, “then how are we different from the Nazis? They only see one way, their way. We’re better than that. We’re English for God’s sake.”

John met Rupert’s and Bill’s eyes in turn, and behind him he felt Rose move to stand next to him. That flush of pride expanded. She stood next to him, where she belonged (not behind him) and raised her chin in defiance. Jack moved beside him as well.

“Jack,” she said calmly in contrast to the shouting she and Martha had done just moments before. “Call the constable. Explain what happened and have him send people round immediately.” And then her fingers did wrap around his, the most natural feeling in the universe. “And if I hear anything about these 5 boys not making it to trial—alive and unharmed,” she threatened, “you’ll have to deal with me.”

Rupert scowled but nodded. Bill Banks looked impassive, but John sensed nothing illicit from him—no harm to Rose, and that was all that mattered.

The only thing to matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Dr. Harold Gillies is real, as is his book, originally published (far as I can tell) in 1920. http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zxw42hv  
> *In no way do I mean to imply all Irish were in league with the Nazi’s or Fascism. Only a very small faction were and they were quickly banished from both the IRA and any ruling Irish party.  
>  IRA Wikipedia and   
> The Irish Story.com 


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hunters have arrived. And Rose and Martha have found Torchwood. Slightly NSFW but nothing explicit (Possessive!Doctor)  
>   
> As always, you must thank (as I do often) my brilliant beta, Kilodalton. Without her, this story would make a hell of a lot less sense to people not wandering inside my brain. You also have to thank her (or curse her, your choice) for the extra 1000 words added to my initial chapter. Course it does make more sense now, but still.

**Day 44:**  
Broad Oak was in chaos. It hummed along Rose’s skin, an itch at the back of her mind. Nervous energy, a sort of excited fear though none of those left on the farm had anything to do with the IRA or Blueshirts.

Jack had called the constable and not thirty minutes later a truckload of various members of the constabulary and possibly several members of the SIS, according to the Harkness brothers who seemed to know their British Intelligent Services, arrived to take the renegades into custody.

Staff stood in various places around the farm looking utterly bewildered though most of them knew about the threat and had participated in the searches. Mrs. Michaels, the cook, looked ready to bash in heads as the SIS traipsed through the house. Jack led a small fire brigade to put out a mysteriously-started fire in one of the out buildings and organize a search party. 

Constables swarmed the stables as if more Blueshirts hid amongst the horses. John, furious at the disruption to innocent creatures, led all the animals into various paddocks so they wouldn’t be more traumatized than need be. Currently he stood by his favorite, Phallen, and absently stroked the horse’s flank.

Forcibly reminded of another horse, Arthur of smashing through a time window fame, Rose wondered if he’d want to take this one back with them, too. She glanced in the direction of the TARDIS, though could barely see the abandoned structure She was housed in from where they stood. Rose didn’t know how their ship felt about horses.

Rose thought She tolerated Winston well enough, had cared for him during her absence and their 1969 adventure, but a horse? Much bigger creature. Then again, She did tolerate all of them.

Leaning against the fencing of the paddock, she reached over it to brush her hand along Phallen’s nose. The horse whinnied and she thought he grinned at her. Eyeing the creature carefully, Rose did it again and he nuzzled her fingers. Yes, he did like that.

“He likes you.” John said with soft pride, but continued to watch her, eyes shadowed. He’d stayed out of the center of the storm, but had questions. Rose had told him everything pertaining to Amélie and hoped he knew that.

Anger beat along their link, but Rose didn’t think it was directed at her. Well not totally.

They only had 45 days left before…her heart twisted in her chest and her gaze slid from his. How was she going to do it? She’d said goodbye to him once, on a frozen beach in Norway when she hadn’t thought she’d seen him again. This was different, this was…Rose didn’t know what it was.

A right mess.

She’d thought of ways to get him to open the watch, everything from a joking gift to sensuous cajoling in bed, to outright begging. Even now the watch lay heavily in her inner pocket, a comfort and a taunt. No matter how she thought on it or stressed over it, specific words never formed, and she knew she’d have to do it on the fly.

God, how was she going to say goodbye to John?

Raising her gaze back to his, Rose wondered if the darkening in his eyes signaled he knew what she thought. Uncertain, scared, she channeled her grief and confusion and conflicting feelings into what needed to be done next.

Oh, she knew John would ask his questions about the secrets she continued to keep long before their time at Broad Oak was over. She just needed a little time, a way to tell him the truth without telling him all the truth. A plan, even.

She almost snorted at that, but refrained. A cover story, at the very least. And one that’d feel as the truth through their bond.

Turning her attention from her husband’s steady probing gaze, she looked back to the organized pandemonium. The anger and betrayal and energy that leapt from person to person like an electrical current.

The anticipation.

Rose had seen it when she and mum arrived in the other universe and had to integrate into Pete’s high profile persona. Years before their arrival, Mickey had seamlessly taken on Rickey’s life. Mum had had a bit more trouble with three years since that Jackie’s death, but managed. Rose…she shook her head sharply to dispel those memories.

No use remembering the rumors and cruel speculation. She’d agreed to one Vitex photo shoot. One press conference. Then immersed herself in Torchwood. Despite her happiness here, her family was never far from her thoughts and she wondered how Mickey and her mum were doing. 

Did they still work on the Dimension Cannon? Were they happy? Did they think she’d died or had successfully found the Doctor? Her phone hadn’t worked since the cannon shorted out, and she’d no way to contact Mickey in the control room and let him know she was safe. Her mum had spent so much time trying to become the wife Pete needed, the woman who didn’t court scandal, but she’d always been the fierce woman who never let Rose give up.

Jake had her letters to them, her wishes for a fantastic life and her love for all of them. Rose hoped and prayed and wished her jump hadn’t changed her mum. That Jackie Tyler was still that same complicated, fantastic, kick ass woman. And Mickey, who’d grown so much in his years there. Her best friend through everything.

God, she missed them.

What had they told the media, if anything, about her disappearance? What had they told Tony? What was Tony learning now? Her little brother would be four? Five? No, older.

Rupert’s angry shout jerked Rose from her calculations of Tony’s age and pulled her attention back to current events. Neither the constabulary nor the SIS seemed to consider him or Broad Oak complicit, but his temper had snapped.

Amélie was missing.

“One danger gone,” Martha said quietly from beside her. “Two,” she added with no sympathy, “counting her.”

Rose didn’t need to glance at John to know he watched them from the other side of Phallen. Meeting his gaze she held his assessing look and sent as much understanding and honesty through their link as she could. He gave her one last measuring look, mouth set into a thin line that brought out his dimples, and nodded once.

“I’m going to find Jack.”

She watched him leave and another wave of helpless anger and crushing grief buffeted her. Rose didn’t think she was a strong enough telepath to prevent those feelings from leaking across her bond with John and quickly added all the love and affection she felt for him.

His stride didn’t slow, but Rose watched his shoulders relax slightly.

Not for the first time she wondered what he thought of that link. He never asked about it, never questioned it, merely accepted it as fact. As part of their love.

The local constables continued to question everyone, but Rose could honestly say she had no idea where Amélie was. Rose didn’t know whether to be grateful for that or even angrier.

“I do count her,” Rose agreed on an annoyed sigh. “I don’t like not knowing where she is. If she’s got more friends who are a danger to us.” Her fingers gripped the paddock railing and she stared at Phallen as if the stud had all the answers. “Still—two down, two to go.”

“Let’s take tonight off,” Martha offered and looked over her shoulder to where John had disappeared. “We can start worrying again first thing tomorrow.”

 ******  
Day 45**  
The farm wasn’t exactly back to normal, but John had seen to the horses first thing. Other than basic chores, Broad Oak was taking a day off to recover from yesterday’s events. IRA and spies and invasion and the mystery of Amélie’s disappearance.

They hadn’t discussed any of that last night. As soon as the door closed behind them, Rose kissed him, the hard bruising kiss he’d come to accept (and enjoy). The desperation in her kiss, her touch, however, remained unabated.

With the capture of the IRA faction and Amélie’s disappearance, John thought that desperation would’ve melted away. It hadn’t. If anything, Rose’s kiss, her fingers through his hair, her nails down his back, beat of an unresolved fear.

Still, she refused to talk to him. He knew she kept something from him, she was a lousy liar and the link between them pulsed with a faint echo of secrets. No matter what he did or said or tried had her opening up and he was tired of it.

Didn’t she know he’d do anything for her? _(Don’t leave me, I won’t survive.)_ He’d protect her with his own life; die for her if need be—anything to safeguard her. Oh, the poets had romanticized love, that all-encompassing need of it, but they’d also romanticized death.

John had seen death. More death and destruction and hatred than any man ought to see and touch and feel. But love. He’d loved before—his comrades and the men he’d served with. Jack. A couple women he’d _(traveled with)_ grown up with, but nothing like he felt with-for-about Rose.

He’d never known love had such a capacity. Mere words felt like ash compared to what he felt for her. Maybe that was why they shared their bond. To express what words had no dominion over.

“Walk with me?” John held out his hand.

Her fingers connected with his and that simple touch caused their connection to flare. She burned gold and red across his senses, love and time and forever. He took all she offered and pulled it into himself, grateful and greedy for more.

He’d touch Rose all day every day if it added to the intimacy of their connection.

A faintly remembered dream nearly blinded him, and John stumbled. Rose caught him, and when the vision cleared he saw her watching him, concerned. Deeper in her brandy-colored eyes, he saw what he could only describe as fear and wondered if it were possible for her to see the same vision over their connection.

“Oh, I’m fine.” He grinned and tugged on his ear in embarrassment. “Must’ve tripped on a hole.”

Rose made a show of looking behind them; the dirt path was well worn, no hole (or even an indentation much to his chagrin) marred the surface.

She laughed and took his hand, wrapping her other hand around his arm and leaning into him. “I’m sure that’s it,” she agreed.

But the vision-memory-dream didn’t leave and despite the list of things he wanted to speak to her about—Amélie and secrets and trust—John only saw Rose, a golden song seducing him closer even as it repelled. Terrified. She beckoned him, held out her hand and he’d never been able to resist taking her hand. It fit so perfectly. Made for hers, he’d once joked as they’d run along the banks of the Thames or in the British Museum to see the goddess, Fortuna.

He wasn’t certain which. Both? Though John couldn’t remember ever going to the British Museum.

He hadn’t told Rose about those dreams. Odd, as he’d confided in her his nightmares, held her close as he told her about death and war and the sounds of his friends dying. Even some of those nightmares he couldn’t explain—losing her and a Buck Rogers vision of the future where he told Jack he could never reach her again.

Dreams of Rose as a golden goddess, alluring and seductive and _I bring life_ and _I want you safe, my Doctor_ , John kept to himself.

In dreams, he was the Doctor. (In dreams, he was _Rose’s_ Doctor.)

John had thought about writing his dreams in a journal, but dismissed it. Though they’d made excellent sculptures, he thought. Maybe he’d create some of them, start sculpting again as he’d said to Rose when they’d first arrived at Broad Oak.

But they were only dreams and he’d rather spend every free moment with Rose.

She came first. Always.

Besides, if he told her, she’d probably laugh. At his imagination and flights of fancy and having his head in the clouds.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked softly as they walked from Broad Oak south along the cliffs.

The wind was especially fierce today, and Rose’s hair flew from her bun as if she hadn’t spent considerable time fixing it. She mumbled something about hair ties and a good scrunchie, whatever feminine things they were, and loosened her hand around his to tuck flyaway strands of honey-blonde hair behind her ear.

( _Can’t you come through properly?_ She’d asked and he knew she was frozen to the bone—not merely from the cold; from the distance between them. The wind whipped around her, not touching him. _No touch…_ )

John blinked and looked down at her. “Come here,” he said, wondering where that memory-vision had come from.

With deft fingers, and a skill he didn’t know he possessed, John quickly braided Rose’s hair and with a few pins tucked the ends underneath.

She smiled up at him, and he ran his fingertips over her brow, her cheek, along her jaw. Without thought, John leaned down and kissed her, a soft, tender, press of his lips to hers. Love and possession and need and fear and hope built, until it choked him.

He usually had words upon words. As he pulled back, John had none to describe what Rose meant to him. What he’d do for her. What he’d do to any who harmed her.

Jaw clenched, he abruptly turned and tugged her against him.

“John?” Rose asked, bumping into his side, fingers automatically curling with his. Love-hope-security. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Amélie.” He stopped and breathed out hard, as if he could release all his anger and fear with a single breath.

“I don’t know where she is,” Rose said, and he caught a defensive note in her tone.

Surprised, he looked down at her. “I know you don’t, my heart.” Sighing, he started walking again, slowly so Rose didn’t have to keep up with his long strides. “But I hate that she won’t face the same justice her IRA friends will.”

Amélie had been in the house when everything happened. Bill and Rupert told the SIS all they knew, and gave Jack credit for discovering the plot, but John hadn’t cared about any of that. Of course he was proud of Jack, his brother didn’t do well with taking credit, but this was well deserved.

The fact Amélie had been a part of this so-called invasion and not been arrested disturbed John. He wanted her to pay—not only for treason but for putting Rose in such a position.

John had a very strong suspicion they’d never hear from Amélie again.

He’d wanted to toss off a pithy— _Good riddance to bad rubbish_ —but the fact Amélie had placed Rose in danger had put her firmly in the _no second chances_ column.

_(No second chances. I'm that sort of a man.)_

“We’ll find her,” Rose offered.

He looked at her askance. “How?”

She chuckled and grinned up at him with her tongue poking out of the side of her mouth. Drawn to her smile, John leaned down and kissed her, letting his own tongue slide along hers. She opened to him, hummed against his mouth and John pulled her closer.

Breaking the kiss he looked down at her, unable to hide the hardness of his words. “She put you in danger.” He hadn’t meant to admit his fear, but then he’d discovered he wasn’t very good at keeping things from Rose. “I could’ve lost you.”

“She was scared.” Her tone wasn’t as forgiving as her words implied. “And she’s gone now. We’ll find out what happened to her, but I doubt we’ll ever see her again.”

“And just how do you plan that?” he asked, slinging his arm over her shoulder and pulling her close as they continued their walk. He was under no illusion Rose thought his anger dissipated, but they’d taken a step beyond it. Just one. For now, it was enough.

For now it was enough. Rose was safe.

Rose leaned her head against his shoulder. “She can’t hide forever; she’ll have left a trail.”

“Ooh, are you deducing?” John asked.

Rose looked at him oddly, but her smile was wide and genuine. “I have my ways,” she said confidently.

John pulled her against him and kissed her deeply, a way to show her his affection, his need. His absolute pride in her. One hand cupped the back of her head and he pressed his forehead against hers. “You continue to surprise me, Rose. Just when I think I know all your secrets, you show me another.”

“You do know all my secrets, John,” she whispered, her voice taken by the wind.

“Do I?” he asked, fingers tightening on the base of her neck, around her hand.

“Yes.” She looked up at him with a bone-deep honesty that soothed his worries. But didn’t completely erase them. “All I am, all that matters, you know. You have.”

“What are you hiding from me, Rose?”

She raised her hand to cup his cheek, her nails grazing his sideburns. He should probably shave them off, but Rose liked them. And well….

“John, do you trust me?”

“With everything I am.”

Leaning up, she pressed her lips to his. “Then trust me. I love you.”

John watched her for a long moment. Her eyes had darkened but showed no deceit. And their bond pulsed strong and sure between them. He didn’t understand how their link worked, but knew it couldn’t lie.

Finally he nodded and tugged her to him in silence. He had other questions about Amélie and those IRA blokes and how Martha had truly come to overhear their plan. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Martha had simply stumbled into their conversation. That was entirely possible. But it didn’t ring true.

They slowly walked by a dilapidated house along the side of the road, but John barely paid it any mind. Rose, however, had stopped teasing him about using Hercule Poirot’s tactics to find Amélie and stared at the abandoned structure as if it were a cobra about to strike.

“Let’s go home, John,” she said abruptly.

Surprised, he stopped just past the house and looked at her, worried. “Is something wrong?” he asked. “You wanted to go for a walk, was it too long? Are you tired now?”

“No.” Rose shook her head and tore her gaze from the falling-down building. Wary anxiousness shone in her gaze. Then she blinked and pure lust blazed there instead. “No, not tired.”

Leaning up on her toes, she kissed him, a teasing play of tongue and lips as one hand drifted along his hip to his crotch. John’s breath hitched when her fingers played along the seam of his trousers and he pulled her closer, fingers tightening over her upper arms.

His kiss was hard and possessive, and he sent every ounce of love and lust and adoration through it. John knew Rose understood and accepted and felt the same.

“Let’s go home. I want you to fuck me.”

John’s breath stopped and he pulled back at the profanity. Not out of disgust. Out of a silver-gold bolt of lust.

“I want you to tie me to the bed,” Rose continued, her eyes dark, mouth swollen, hands combing through his hair just as he liked to cup the back of his neck. “And I want to know I’m yours.”

“Yes,” he growled. Yes, she was his, but oh, he was hers as well. No one else’s. Always and forever Rose’s.

 ********  
“Martha,” Rose breathed as soon as John left. Her limbs felt heavy with sated desire from John’s expert touch. And his love continued to flare brightly along their link despite no longer touching.

He’d fucked her, all right, and it was delicious and arousing and hard and fast and just the other side of pain. Rose loved every second of it. She wanted more. Her skin hummed and her blood sang.

Though it’d been her idea, fear pounded through her. In the back of her mind, _(keep him safe)_ and through the very fiber of her being _(keep him safe)_. Even as John’s mouth brought her to climax and his hand came down on her bum until her body wound so tight it hurt, even as she tugged her restraints and _begged_ for more, that single thought beat through her.

Keep him safe.

“I found Torchwood,” she rushed on.

Martha dropped her journal and nodded, mouth a thin, tight line. She stood from the sofa in a smooth move, gaze hard and focused. “Where?”

“They’re in a house along the path John and I walked today.”

Rose wanted to wrap herself around her lover and hold him tight to keep away the bad guys. But that wasn’t how life worked. She’d seen that house and hadn’t thought anything of it until a shadow passed the window. Then she knew; if Rose was anyone else, she’d have passed it off as squatters or transients or even more IRA Blueshirts.

She didn’t have to see inside, to see the people hiding there. To know it was Torchwood.

Martha ran upstairs, changed her shoes to the practical walking ones they’d used as the explored Broad Oak and less than five minutes later, they were hurrying back down the path. It was mid-afternoon and they didn’t have a plan.

“What are we going to do?” Martha asked in a breathless whisper as they sprinted down the lane. “Tie them up?”

Rose’s wrists throbbed in memory of John tying her up, but she ignored the flush of arousal. How could she want John so much when cloying fear threatened to choke her? The human body was a strange, mysterious thing.

“Not a bad idea, but no.”

“You don’t have a plan, do you.” It wasn’t a question or even an accusation.

“Not as such,” Rose admitted.

“If we tie them up until our remaining 45 days are over, we’d have to actually feed them,” Martha pointed out, always the practical one. “Plus, then they’d know they were right—that the Jack Harkness they were after is the same as our Jack.”

“And that’d put the village in danger,” Rose agreed as they rounded the corner and stopped. “And what would we do after?”

The house was partially hidden by a couple of trees and several overgrown bushes. Had they passed it before? It was easily missed, and if Rose hadn’t been facing that direction earlier, hadn’t seen the tell-tale shadow, she’d have missed it again.

Now, hidden behind a small copse of trees, she and Martha watched the seemingly-abandoned structure.

“What makes you think they’re in there?” Martha whispered close to Rose’s ear. No sense taking chances.

“An abandoned structure this close to Broad Oak?” Rose whispered back. “There were shadows in the windows.”

“Could be homeless,” Martha pointed out reasonably.

“That’s why we’re here. I want to—”

Before she had the chance to finish her sentence or talk out her thoughts, the door opened and two men exited. They were both tall, dressed in identical black suits with matching ties and hats. Even their shoes shone exactly the same way. They walked the same way and looked around the area the same way. They tilted their heads the same way. 

“We are the unluckiest people ever,” Martha whispered, her voice even lower than before if that was possible. “Either that or the saying two birds, one stone, exists solely for the Doctor and his companions.”

“Could go either way,” Rose agreed, voice thick with dread.

Fear curled ugly and heavy in her stomach, filling her throat with the stench of it. Because those men were no longer Torchwood. No longer _just_ Torchwood. They were possessed. Rose saw it in the tilt of their heads and the blankness of their eyes, the stiffness of their limbs as they moved.

“Where are the other two?” Martha demanded. Her hands shook as she sought Rose’s, gripped it tightly. “There were four on Silous, right?”

“I don’t know,” Rose admitted, unable to control her own trembling. “Maybe only two survived.”

Minutes. _Seconds._ If they’d been any longer there, if she and John had stayed on this path, by this house, then what? Would these men, or what remained of the men, have seen them? Known who John was? Figured it out because they’d recognized her?

Rose tugged Martha’s hand and urged her to stand. With a silence she hadn’t known either of them possessed, the moved back through the woods, feet quiet on the wet ground. On the other side of the small copse of trees, still shaking, still holding onto Martha’s hand, Rose stopped.

“How long?” Rose whispered. She had no idea how good those hunters’ hearing was, how far her voice would carry on the wind from the Cliffs. “How long have they been here? How long have those men been possessed?”

“And what happened to the other two?” Martha’s voice faded out and she took a deep breath before continuing, stronger. “Are they dead, unable to keep their form? Or did they take over others?”

“And if they did,” Rose asked, “where are those others?” She took one last look over her shoulder, heart tripping over itself, thoughts racing one after another. “We need to get back.”

Rose stopped. John’s watch lay heavy in the inner pocket of her trousers. Between the roar of the wind and the roar of her own fear, she barely heard her thoughts, but one beat through. The same one that had beat through her since coming here. The only one that mattered.

_Protect him._

She took a deep breath, sent a prayer to God or the Universe or some vast Creator. Or all of the above. Because this plan, this stupid, desperate half-assed plan was the only thing she had. The only thing that might work.

“We can’t let anyone die,” she told Martha.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Martha demanded. She hadn’t even needed to be told and part of Rose felt a rush of warmth and affection and _love_ for her friend. 

Rose squeezed her fingers then dropped her hand. “We know where Torchwood is now.”

“Yeah,” Martha interrupted in an irritated, angry hiss. “And those hunters took them over so they’re not just Torchwood out to get everyone but they’re _hunters_ out to get everyone. Not a brilliant combination!”

She knew. But if it was a choice between her life and John’s—the Doctor’s—then there was no choice. Once upon a time, Rose had stood at a fork in the road. It wasn’t life or death but a simple choice—to knock on a door or not to.

_Two roads diverged in a yellow wood_

She had knocked and her life, already changed by a brilliant, fantastic man, had changed again. Rose often wondered what would’ve happened if she’d given into her fears and insecurities and hadn’t knocked on the Doctor’s bedroom door that day.

She’d chosen this life long before she and the Doctor had become lovers. Long before she’d told him she loved him, long before they talked about children or a future or marriage.

“Martha,” Rose said softly. Her heart broke just a little because she didn’t know. Didn’t know if she’d survive or if her sacrifice would make a difference. But the choice, as always, was clear as day.

There was no choice.

She had to protect her lover, her husband. No matter what name he chose, John or Doctor, or the musical name he’d whispered to her on their wedding night, the one tattooed on her arms, _he was hers_. And she’d be damned if those hunters used him to destroy the very universe he’d sworn to protect.

“I have to do this.” Her voice cracked. “We can’t let the hunters find either of them, but we can’t let them possess us, either.”

“You don’t know how they transfer,” Martha pointed out, still logical, but her voice wavered, too. “Maybe they can only transfer when the corporeal body is close to death.”

“We don’t know,” Rose agreed. “But we can’t wait to find out.” She took in a deep breath of sea and wind and moist earth. All she felt was blind panic. “I don’t know what else to do!” she admitted. “I don’t know how to fight them. Can I kill them?”

It hurt to think, and from the look on Martha’s face she knew her friend felt the same. “All we’ve done these last weeks, if we killed them now then what?”

Rose pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and tried to focus. “They want John and Jack. They want them, but they haven’t found them yet. If you go back to John and tell him--”

“Tell him what?” Martha hissed. “Tell him you’ve gone off with no plan? Tell him that his wife’s in danger? He’ll rush after you with no plan, either, and then where will we be?”

Martha held up a hand, but her eyes were wide with fear. “And we _don’t_ know how they transfer. When John and Jack get here, can those hunters transfer like a ghost? Breathe out of these Torchwood blokes and into them?”

Rose had a very vivid memory of Cassandra transferring her consciousness between her and the Doctor with barely a thought. There’d been no mist—had there? Rose didn’t remember. All she remembered was Cassandra jumping from her to the Doctor and back again.

“I don’t know!” Rose admitted, frustrated and scared and angry. “But we have to do something. And if John knows I’m in trouble and need his help,” she told her friend what they both already knew, “and opening the watch is the only way to save me, he will.” Rose sucked in a deep breath. “You know he will.”

It was thin logic at best. Very, very thin. But they were out of time. 

Pale, eyes wide, breath coming entirely too fast, Martha nodded. She didn’t look happy, her lips twisted in a thin scowl, but she nodded. “I don’t like this. In fact, I hate it. We have no working knowledge of these creatures, we hid without understanding them, and now we’re stuck. I hate your not-plan.”

“Martha,” Rose pleaded. “It’s all we’ve got.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to like it. Take these,” she insisted and shoved a gardening trowel, a heavy-duty metal torch, and a kitchen knife at Rose.

“Where did you get these?” Rose blinked at the assortment as she took them.

Martha looked at her as if she’d dribbled on her shirt. “I travel in time and space with a man in a blue police box whose wife crossed dimensions to find him again, my lover is just about a hundred years old, we frequently get arrested and always seem to run for our lives.”

She shook her head and her lips curved into a semblance of a shaky smile. “You think I’m not prepared?”

Then she sobered and hugged Rose tight. “Don’t do anything stupid. I won’t be long and if you get yourself killed or possessed, I’m going to find a way to bring you back to kill you myself!”

Then she was gone, running down the path back toward the farm. Rose took a deep breath, shoved the items into her own pockets, and carefully made her way back to the house. She didn’t have a plan. Keep an eye on the hunter-possessed Torchwood was all fine and dandy, but then what?

“Hurry, Martha.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Resolutions.   
> Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! I have more stories planned; you can check out my (more than slightly ambitious and possibly unrealistic) [outline](http://hellostarlight20.tumblr.com/WeAreNeverAloneOutline). I’m working on _There’s Got to Be A Morning After_ now and will begin posting once it’s finished.

**Day 45:**  
Rose distracted him quite neatly and he knew it. Accepted it. Let her do so. John didn’t know why she’d done it, didn’t understand her reasoning, but he’d let her. Truthfully he wasn’t entirely certain why he’d let her other than she’d needed to.

Maybe she was scared about repercussions for Amélie or her choice to hide Amélie’s role.

She’d seemed to want to bring the other woman to justice, but hadn’t offered any of her information to the SIS or constables, or even to Rupert. And today she’d deftly used her body to distract him from his questioning.

He didn’t doubt Rose had wanted him. That wasn’t the point. The question was: Why did she want to stop him from asking questions?

But even that was wrong, and that wrongness beat along the back of his brain, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. He loved her, trusted her, and knew that whatever she continued to hide from him—despite her protestations to the contrary—wasn’t dangerous.

Danger. That pulsed within him, and he wondered what Rose was doing now. Or was it his own concern, his anger over Amélie, the unresolved—

“John!” Martha shouted. She looked scared and angry and shaking. And she was alone.

He dropped Phallen’s reins and in quick strides crossed to the paddock railing. “Where’s Rose?” John demanded. Hard and angry, fury unrestrained. Panic and pain, a worried lover. 

Danger, it no longer beat at the back of his brain. It screamed over their link and stared him in the face as Martha, breathless, ran straight for the paddock.

“Rose went to confront Torchwood.” Martha’s voice was even despite the dread he heard creeping through her. The tense set of her shoulders. The controlled fear. “They’re…” she shook her head, trembling but brave and stoic in the face of her obvious fear and his threatening wrath.

For a beat she pressed her fingers of one hand to her eyelids as if to control her emotions. Her tears.

“Martha.” Low and harsh and filled with inherent threat. _“Where is my wife?”_

“I told you,” Martha snapped, dropping her hand. Upset, and still afraid. But not, John realized, afraid of him. Whatever terrified Martha, it scared her more than his fury. “She’s trying to protect the both of you. We found out where those Torchwood agents were hiding and went to confront them.”

Something in her tone suggested confrontation was not all they’d had in mind for these mysterious Torchwood people. John ignored it. He didn’t know who or what Torchwood was—didn’t care. All he wanted was Rose, safe. No matter the consequences otherwise.

“But they were already taken over.” Martha swallowed and when she looked up at him this time John saw not the fear, but the resigned knowledge that those people had died. Horribly. It wasn’t that, he also saw, that made Martha tremble.

What then?

“The hunters. They found us.” Martha took in a deep breath and tossed her head back. She watched him, judged him, nodded as if accepting what she saw. “They found us. I’m sorry, Doctor. John. I’m so, so sorry.” Her voice cracked and her breath hitched. “But the plan didn’t work. And now Rose has gone to stop them before they kill anyone else.”

“Where,” he asked quietly. Slowly. Every syllable an enunciation. A promise. A threat. _“Where is she?”_

_Find Rose. Keep Rose safe. Protect Rose._

Instead of answering, Martha held out a watch with trembling fingers. She held it between them, a bridge he didn’t understand. Wanted to accept, yet recoiled from.

“Open the watch. It’ll answer all your questions.” She took in another strained breath. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again. “I really am. But you have to. And then you can find Rose.”

John grabbed the fob watch from her. Despite her shaking and the tears she refused to shed and her sympathetic words, Martha stood calm in the face of the storm crashing-blowing-raging within him. Fear and ice and rage burned him. John didn’t look at the watch. He almost threw it across the paddock, furious that Martha poked him with meaningless, insignificant words when his beloved was in danger.

Then his fingers closed over the watch. Warm and calming and calling and there. A flash. A light. Knowledge and power and understanding. Coalescing and swirling and it moved through John before he truly understood that his fingers had found the clasp and opened the fob watch and then…

He screamed.

Aloud or in his mind or maybe through his soul and across the universe. He screamed. The pain didn’t merely hurt. It clawed and cut and bruised and burned and remade. Enveloped and encircled and shrouded him.

Seconds-minutes-hours-days-months. Life times. They all passed through him in the blink of an eye. His blink. A Time Lord’s blink. A Time Lord’s life. Lives.

When he came to, he was on the ground, Phallen pawing the dirt beside him, fingers an iron grip around the watch. Now empty and meaningless, simply a watch. His limbs ached, his bones hurt, his head swirled with new memories.

“Huh. New memories.”

The words were heavy and thick on his tongue as if he’d forgotten how to speak, but he was already pushing himself up. Off the ground. Shaking off Martha’s worried hands and her whispered words of _I’m so sorry_. Dropping the watch, forgotten.

“Where did Rose go?” he demanded. _The Doctor demanded._

Once more Martha judged him. Once more she nodded. “The path you two walked earlier, two miles south towards Dover,” she said in clipped tones. But her eyes were heavy with regrets. “You remember it?” she eyed him, clearly not certain he remembered John’s movements.

The Doctor nodded. He remembered. He remembered everything.

“There’s an abandoned house where Torchwood made camp. They were spying on Jack.” Her voice didn’t break but she did flinch, a small jerk he nearly missed. “The hunters found them.”

The house. Earlier, before _fuck me_ and _tie me to the bed_ and grasping, desperate kisses, and his hand coming down on Rose’s white arse and her moans and pleas for more as her arse turned a lovely shade of pink. Hot possessive arousal flooded him, but he forced it back. The memories were clear as if it’d been his Time Lord self touching her, and the heady dominant feel of Rose begging beneath him threatened to overwhelm everything.

Hands curled into fists, he locked all that away. Rose was in danger. He knew that house, they’d stood before it and her attention had been sidetracked, and he’d let her. That’s why she’d pulled him back to the cottage. That’s why she’d begged him to fuck her. That was her reason for distracting him.

That house. Rose had somehow known. And now his stubborn, brilliant wife had put herself in danger to stop them.

Cursing, the Doctor took Martha’s hand, squeezed, eyes still trained on her as he reached behind him for Phallen’s reins. “Thank you, Martha. Find Jack. Make him open the watch. I’ll need him.”

“Doctor,” Martha said, apparently knowing and accepting the change without asking. Oh, but she was brilliant. “That’s what they want, the both of you. If you walk in there, they’ll have you.”

“I don’t plan to walk in, Martha,” he said as Phallen stood silent and ready beside him. The Doctor swung onto the bare back of the horse and looked down at his friend. “Get Jack. Meet me there.”

“And the hunters?” she demanded.

He didn’t look at her. Rage burned inside him, cold and calculating and consuming. “They had their chance. I’m a no second chances kind of man.”

 ********  
She’d killed him. She’d killed John as surely as if she’d killed the Doctor. Oh, God, she’d killed her lover. Her husband. She’d killed the man she loved. 

Rose pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and took deep breaths but no amount of deep breathing changed the fact. She’d killed him. By forcing him to open the watch, but using Martha to play him like that, she’d manipulated him horribly.

Had she a choice? Yes. Maybe. She didn’t know.

Should she have gone there and done it herself? Probably. Yes. _Yes._

But Rose couldn’t watch. Just couldn’t. She’d watched him sit in that Chameleon Arch and change his cellular structure from Time Lord to human Watched him writhe and scream in pain. Watched him go from her lover the Doctor to her lover John. She couldn’t watch again.

Worse than that, she was a coward. Deep down, Rose was terrified she wouldn’t have been able to do it. To kill John for the Doctor.

Oh, but she had and that made her worse than a killer. That made her a murderer; the murder of one man her conscious choice.

Her stomach heaved, but she swallowed it down. Curled her fingers into the unforgiving bark of the oak tree and blocked her emotions away. She’d sent Martha back to the farm with the watch because Rose knew John and the Doctor would always come for her. Always help her. Always save her.

She’d used that knowledge so she didn’t have to watch.

And now what? Now Rose crouched low in the small copse of trees and scanned the area. She watched the Torchwood/hunters from the safety of the small wood. Why?

To keep an eye on them? Yes.  
To hide from John? (The Doctor) Yes.

She had no plan, nothing other than observation. Could they transfer as easily as Cassandra had? Rose didn’t think so—that had been Cassandra’s mind, her consciousness, not her entire lifeform. Then again, Rose knew nothing about these creatures.

Other than they wanted John (the Doctor) and Jack.

The two men merely stood there. Maybe only two had survived. She didn’t want to know what the hunters had done in order to get this far.

Who else they killed in a bid for life.

She scanned the area again, searching for the other two hunters, their ship, other clues, anything really. But Rose hadn’t found any others, and hadn’t spotted the hunter’s ship, not that she knew what it looked like. Could be disguised as a tree for all she knew. Rose hadn’t seen one on Silous, had only run.

But they’d followed the TARDIS into the Vortex, so they’d need one. Perhaps it’d crashed, though no one had reported seeing any meteoritical unusualness. Maybe in the Channel? It’d explain why there were only two, not four, hunters.

“What are they doing?” she muttered, voice thick with unshed tears and clawing guilt and suffocating grief.

The men, or aliens, or possessed creatures (possessee’s?) continued to stand there. And sniff? Rose narrowed her eyes. She watched them for several more minutes, trying to figure out what the hell they were doing.

How had they hunted? Scent? Was that it? It’d all been so rushed, but she remembered the Doctor asking if they’d seen her—they hadn’t seen her, but they’d scented a Time Lord and Jack with enough universal energy to sustain him for billions of years.

“What are you sniffing?” she wondered. Could they scent John (the Doctor) from here?

“They’re looking for me.” John’s voice was so quiet, so unexpected, so right next to her ear that Rose let out a squeak of surprise and lost her balance, falling to her bum as she did so.

Annoyed, she resumed her crouch, this time beside John. Rose brushed wet leaves off her pants and quickly looked toward the hunters. They didn’t seem to notice her. Maybe the wind wasn’t blowing in the right direction or something.

Her heart pounded, but not from the slight scare he’d given her. She wasn’t ready for this. She wasn’t prepared. How could she face him? How could she look him in the eye and know what she’d done to him?

Jerking her gaze back to John, Rose knew it had worked. He’d opened the watch and however the Time Lord technology hid his essence, it had now returned it to him. He held himself differently. Not prouder, John was confident and proud, with so many of the same mannerisms of the Doctor. 

There was that one difference; now he held himself with an innate knowledge only the Doctor carried.

“Doctor?” Rose whispered and her heart shuddered.

He took her hand, fingers automatically twining with hers, thumb grazing her knuckles, over her wedding band. All in all, not so different a touch from John’s, but the look in his eyes was timeless. There she saw the weight of lifetimes.

She knew. It throbbed along their link and she wondered how she hadn’t felt him change. Maybe whatever happened dampened their connection. More likely, he’d blocked it through sheer stubborn will. But now, with his fingers wrapped around hers, Rose felt the difference to the very core of her being.

Subtle yet telling, it was like a sense she hadn’t realized she’d possessed had suddenly awakened. That knowledge settled deep within her, a comfort she hadn’t missed but now needed.

She didn’t deserve his comfort. Rose closed in on herself, blocked off her end of their bond as much as she knew how. It wasn’t complete, as far as she knew, that was impossible, but it was enough to keep her guilt and grief, even embarrassment over her actions in bed, from him.

His free hand cradled the back of her head and his lips brushed over hers, just a touch. Even as she returned the gentle kiss, and Rose’s heart soared, her heart broke. Not for cottages and mortgages and curtains, but for the man the Doctor had become.

The human she’d fallen in love with as surely as she’d fallen in love with the Time Lord.

“Do you have a plan?” he asked, the words whispered against her mouth.

“Nope!” She said far too cheerfully. Swallowing against the pain and the happiness and the clawing, choking confusion, she pulled back. “Needed to do a little reconnoitering before I made it that far.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do _you_ have one?”

His eyes were dark and hard and dangerous. They pierced through her and it was only then that she felt it. The cold fury and no second chances. The anger at the hunters for not taking what he offered.

But his fingers were gentle on the nape of her neck, his thumb soft over the soft skin there. She didn’t deserve his gentleness.

“Doctor,” Rose began. 

He squeezed her fingers and she paused. When he spoke his voice was ice and fury and ancient. “They had their chance.”

She tried again, but had no counter argument. Everything they’d done, the month and a half they’d hidden to give the hunters one final chance, the change she and Martha had had to endure in the men they loved. Rose wanted to be compassionate to the remnants of a species, all four of them or only the two she saw still by the house, but had no words.

“There are only two,” she finally said. Then, because she didn’t deserve gentleness or compassion or understand or forgiveness, she transferred it to them. Didn’t know what else to do. “We can drop them off on a deserted planet.”

She almost said _like Jahoo_ , but that was their planet—they’d married there, their family had witnessed their union there, and Rose refused to sully such happy memories with these hunters.

Her need to keep John (the Doctor) safe pounded through her. Though it tore a fundamental part of her being to harm another, Rose needed him safe. She opened time to protect him. She’d do anything to continue to do so.

Swallowing hard, she slowly, very deliberately, nodded. “What do you need me to do?”

Just then she heard more footsteps. Stiffening, Rose prepared for a fight. Whether with the hunters, with Rupert and Broad Oak, or vagrants, it didn’t matter. She had not come all this way for things to end badly now.

“Rose.” Martha sounded out of breath as she stilled beside them. It was the look in her heartbroken gaze that tore at Rose.

She wanted to ask what happened, but a deep part of her knew it had to do with Jack’s transition. Had he not opened the fob watch? No, a quick look at him confirmed the ageless Jack with the same fathomless look in his eyes as the Doctor. Whatever it was, Rose reached for Martha’s hand with her free one and gave it a quick squeeze.

Martha nodded, but dropped her hand. She stood beside Rose, opposite Jack. Not touching. Oh. Oh, no.

Pushing all that to the back, ignoring it for the moment, Rose hazarded a quick look at Jack. He stood closed off and cocky, arms folded over his chest. He and the Doctor seemed to be having a silent conversation.

“Don’t.” The men looked sharply at her and at least had the grace to flush at being caught. 

Now was not the time for recriminations and fear or the guilt that pressed in on her from all sides. This ended now, one way or another. “Whatever you’re planning, Martha and I didn’t spend 45 days hiding you just so the pair of you could go off and get yourselves killed.”

“Do you know where their ship landed?” the Doctor asked, looking between her and Martha.

“No,” Martha answered. Her voice was cool and slightly detached, and Rose imagined it was how her doctor voice sounded. Never, ever how she’d sound with them. “We checked the TARDIS scanners every couple days, but haven’t had the chance the last few, what with everything that’s happened.”

“I don’t see anything in the area, and no one’s reported a sighting of any kind. It might have crashed in the Channel,” Rose added with a narrowed gaze between the pair. “So what’s the plan?”

“And don’t try to tell us it’s waltzing in there,” Martha added. “That’s a lousy plan for beings who are just waiting for you two specifically.”

“I was going to blow up their ship,” the Doctor said with a hint of his usual we’re-in-danger humor. But his eyes were still so dark and angry.

Rose squeezed his hand again. Same and different, wrapped around hers. Locking away everything she felt for John—the love and the grief and the erotic way he possessed her and the misery swallowing her whole—she opened their bond. While she used her brain in ways different that most 21st century humans, it still wasn’t enough to be classified as a full telepath. And though their bond had only strengthened over the time they’d been together, it wasn’t enough for full communication.

It was enough to feel his desperate fear—for her. She supposed she should’ve known. One more item for the ever growing list of things for them to discuss before they had a baby.

Shoving her fears for Joh—the Doctor, the future, their future, and maybe even a niggling fear of being stranded, pregnant, on Sarah Jane’s doorstep because he’d decided to keep her safe to the back of her mind, she focused on the here and now. Unless they sorted these hunter possessed Torchwood men, there’d be no discussion.

“Can we bring them safely back to the TARDIS?” Rose asked in the cool, unemotional voice she’d used for years working for Pete’s Torchwood.

The looks the Doctor and Jack gave her did not bode well for that happening.

“We can drop them off, yeah?” Rose said again, stronger this time. The woman in charge of initial diplomatic relations with non-human races and the one to press forward the Dimension Cannon project.

She refused to allow either man to add two more deaths to their hands. Protect the Doctor, yes, but not at the expense of another piece of his soul.

“Doctor,” Martha said, “you have Phallen. You can get back the fastest. Then you can bring the TARDIS here.”

It wasn’t a question so much as a statement, and Rose let out a small breath of relief. She still held the Doctor’s hand and tightened her fingers over his.

She didn’t deserve his comfort or compassion, but she needed it.

“You don’t have to do this alone,” she reminded him.

“We parked her in the abandoned shed where Jack went to get drunk that night you found him,” Martha added.

The Doctor looked at her for several long, intensely silent minutes where even the birds stopped singing. No sound dared mar the silence. Rose held her breath and thought maybe the whole world did.

Then he nodded. “Jack.”

“On it,” Jack said and repositioned himself between the hunters and Rose and Martha.

With a quick press of his lips to hers, the Doctor swung onto Phallen’s back and seriously how had Rose not heard the horse? But as he galloped off, she thought that maybe Phallen wasn’t entirely an Earth-horse. He was far too quiet—even on the wet ground.

Rose looked to Martha, but her friend remained tight lipped and closed off. Jack refused to look at either of them. Rose pinched the bridge of her nose, crouched beside Jack, and worried her wedding band.

Less than ten minutes later, just as the hunters started down the path toward Broad Oak with their stiff-limbed walk, the tell-tale whirling of the TARDIS sounded. Before it stopped, Jack was racing through the trees, circling the clearing and the rundown house, a gun, some sort of World War I revolver, in his hand.

“Where was he hiding that?” Rose wondered.

But then she and Martha were racing behind him, still not really having a plan, but not about to let either man run off in stupidity either.

“He was supposed to land closer to us,” Martha muttered. “Either he did it on purpose or he’s that bad of a driver.”

Rose thought he’d done it on purpose. To keep her, both of them, out of harm’s way. “I won’t allow him to add two more dead to his count.”

“We won’t,” Martha reminded her and Rose gave her a sharp nod of agreement as they ran.

The hunters turned and stared into the woods. Well, it wasn’t as if the TARDIS was silent. With a malicious glee that froze Rose’s heart, they moved. They hadn’t seen Jack, who’d snuck round the back of the house, too intent on the TARDIS.

It happened all at once. The TARDIS doors opened and the Doctor stepped out, hands shoved in the pockets of John’s work trousers. The casual pose belied the sheer fury coming off him. Rose wasn’t fooled. The hunters didn’t seem to notice or understand.

Then, of course, the house exploded.

As explosions went, Rose had witnessed (and caused) larger ones, but it was enough to rock the ground and send her and Martha flat on their stomachs. The hunters, closer to the house, were thrown toward the Doctor, almost as supplicants before him.

The Doctor stood over them, looking as alien as Rose had ever seen him. Taller, even, as he glared at the pair down his long nose, hands still casually stuffed in his pockets. Jack suddenly stood beside him, gun trained steadily on them.

“I gave you a chance,” the Doctor said and beside her, Rose felt Martha shudder.

She didn’t chance a look at her friend, eyes trained on her husband. He didn’t look up, but if he had, she knew the look in his eyes. It’d scared higher species than these two—cold and distant and more alien than his human body looked.

“Who doesn’t want to live, Time Lord?” one of the men asked. Neither had risen, still on their knees before the Doctor—as if awaiting execution.

“Living is one thing,” the Doctor spat. “Killing others to do so is another. I warned you, but you followed us anyway.”

“Don’t.” Jack hadn’t moved, gaze on both men/hunters/whatever. Had one of them moved? If so, Rose hadn’t seen it. “Because he gave you a chance. I won’t.”

“Where’s your ship?” the Doctor asked, voice like frozen glass. “And the other two who were with you?”

“Dead,” one hissed. “Our ship crashed into the water when we landed.”

“If you’re lying,” he began, but didn’t finish his sentence.

“What are going to do, Time Lord? Murder us?”

For a long, long moment, the Doctor only looked down at the two hunters, now the hunted. Rose didn’t move, barely breathed as she waited. She wanted to go to him, to hold his hand and remind him he wasn’t alone. That she was there and they, all four of them, were safe. She didn’t move.

Instead, she opened her link with him as far as she could. For him. For him, (John or the Doctor her heart didn’t care) she could do anything. She opened their link and let her love and understanding flow over him. Outwardly, he didn’t so much as flinch, but she knew. Felt his acceptance. And when he finally did move, it was a small nod to Jack.

Rose didn’t know how the hunters transferred from one living being to another or how long they’d survived in these bodies or the ones before these Torchwood agents, or even if they gained or lost life energy during the transfer (damn, she sounds like she’s playing one of Mickey’s videogames).

What she did know was that the Doctor found chains just off the console room and shoved the nameless men into a small cupboard just beside the TARDIS door, one she’d never seen and would probably never see again.

“Where are you taking them?” she asked quietly.

His dark gaze swung to her, but all he did was watch her with a darkness and anger and wildness she hadn’t seen in his eyes since they were blue and she stood between him and a Dalek. Silently, she, Martha, and Jack took their assigned positions around the console and, with an oppressive feel of tension, words said and not said, and the knowledge the 45 days they’d hid had cost at least two more lives, they sent the TARDIS into the Vortex.

 ******  
Day 46**  
Rose watched The Doctor run his hand over Phallen’s side. Watched his hands (long and graceful and beautiful as they were) but didn’t meet his gaze. Couldn’t.

“Good horse,” he cooed. “Yes you are. The best there is.”

Phallen whinnied and tossed his head in pride, bumping his nose against Rose’s hand. She laughed, bright and carefree at the simple move and it eased a bit of the tightness around her heart.

“What’s Phallen mean?” she asked, looking up.

Her gaze met his, then slid away. She didn’t know what to call him and that hurt. She saw the same difference in his gaze as she had those first days with John, and that hurt, too. Did he expect things to be as they were? (Before John or as John or ARGH!) Rose had nearly immediately made love to John, but she hadn’t been able to tell him the truth of the situation.

(Was that the reason? She’s slept with her husband to keep him from being suspicious? Rose had no idea any more. Her mind raced and refused to stop on any one thought and her heart raced too fast and it hurt to breathe and she second guessed every, every, move she’d made since Silous.)

Not that she’d done much talking at all to the Doctor. She hid even from their bond. Last night, after everything, all they’d done was get ready to leave Kent. They hadn’t touched, not that she deserved his touch. Rose had purposefully kept their conversation to Broad Oak and the hunters and Torchwood.

Nothing so personal as their feelings.

On a nameless planet at the edge of the Mayall's Object Galaxy, they’d left the remaining two hunters there with just enough provisions, Rose hadn’t asked what that consisted of, to sustain them until the end of their life cycles. Back at Broad Oak, she and Martha packed what few possessions they’d wanted from their time here, while he and Jack had returned to Mayall’s Object weeks in the future and retrieved the bodies.

All in all, she was a bundle of messy emotions. But at least she still had her lover. Martha had taken a duffle filled with closed and as soon as the Doctor returned, mumbled, “I’ll be in my room,” and had all but run down the corridor.

Jack, looking as if her disappearance had torn a hole in his heart, hadn’t followed. He’d exited the TARDIS, disappeared into the cottage for barely a minute, then silently, and empty-handed, reentered the ship with not a word.

Rose gathered Martha’s journals and notes, all their clothing, and Winston. Winston had looked as if he’d waited for them to abandon him here, but when she scooped him up, had curled into her embrace as if he knew what had happened. Jack met her at the TARDIS doors and took everything, not meeting her gaze, and once more disappeared inside.

That had been thirty minutes ago. Now, uncertain what to do, she stood awkwardly by the Doctor and occupied her hands by petting Phallen.

Clearing his throat, the Doctor tugged his ear and shrugged. “Well,” he said, drawing out the word. What had she asked? Oh. Right. Phallen. “It’s Irish,” he hedged, cleared his throat again. “It means wolf.”

Rose blinked and stared at him. “Wolf,” she repeated flatly. Phallen nudged her hand and Rose automatically stroked his nose again. “Well, that certainly figures.”

“You’re leaving, then?”

Rose turned to look at Rupert. The other man seemed to have aged in less than a week. She couldn’t blame him; his entire world had turned upside down. And she hadn’t even said anything about Amélie’s part in the entire thing.

Rose never would. There was enough gossip around the village and the farm. No sense adding more, though she was curious as to what happened to Amélie.

“Yes, we’re off.” The Doctor nodded decisively and extended his hand to Rupert. “It was…thank you,” he finished sincerely.

“You two were the best damn horse trainers I’ve ever seen,” Rupert said almost wistfully. “Sure I can’t talk you into staying?”

“No.” The Doctor met her gaze, and Rose forced herself to hold it for longer than a beat, then returned to Rupert’s. “No, we have to be off.”

Rose turned from Phallen, who snorted unappreciatively when she stopped stroking his nose. She leaned up on tiptoes and kissed Rupert’s cheek. Whether he knew it or not, he was responsible for them having a safe place to hide these last weeks.

“Thank you, Rupert.” She looked into his eyes and added softly, “It’s coming. Another war with Germany. Make sure your people are ready. Make sure the whole coast is.”

Behind her, the Doctor made a noise, a sound that told her to stop giving away the future. Or maybe to stop kissing other men. John would’ve been by her side, tugging her to him, glaring at Rupert. The Doctor stood the same distance away and watched.

Geez, she was going crazy. Did she want John’s possessive hold on her hand, his glare at Rupert? She’d yelled at him the last time he’d done it. But now, now that he was gone (now that she’d killed him) Rose longed for that. Or maybe him.

Rose ignored the Doctor, couldn’t-wouldn’t-didn’t have the courage to meet his gaze, and watched Rupert for another moment. “It’ll be hard, but England will survive.”

Rupert nodded and Rose stepped back. She automatically reached for the Doctor’s hand, John’s hand. His fingers slid easily between hers. Familiar. Another band that had tightened around her chest in the last day eased.

“Will you ever return?” Rupert asked, standing next to Phallen now, though the horse looked put out at that.

“If we’re lucky.” Rose smiled at him then walked away with the Doctor.

She held his hand until they reached the TARDIS, where Jack silently nodded at them. Inside, Martha joined them, silent and drawn, and once more the four of them manned the console.

“How about Cheem?” the Doctor asked without his usual enthusiasm. “Beautiful forests, quiet, tranquil.”

“Yeah,” Martha agreed quietly.

“Sounds great,” Jack seconded.

Rose looked at her friends, the stiffness and awkwardness between them. She forced herself to meet the Doctor’s gaze and nodded.

“Cheem sounds lovely. But no wandering off with sentient trees, yeah?”

He smiled at her, a soft half-smile but the spark in his eyes returned. Another band eased around her heart. Maybe they’d be all right.

She couldn’t say the same for Jack and Martha.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hold me…Doctor. Tonight I just want you to hold me. Don’t let me go. Vaguely NSFW with a Possessive!Doctor and a confused Rose.

**Now parked on a high mountain forest on the planet Cheem**  
The Doctor watched Rose from the doorway of the library. She lay curled in one corner of their sofa, head tilted back to expose the pale, elegant line of the throat. And the mark he’d given her. Yesterday afternoon, before.

It hadn’t taken long for him to fully assimilate John Harkness’s memories, and oh, had Jack given him hell for that surname and taken to calling him _brother_. It made the Doctor’s teeth hurt every time Jack said it. It made Rose and Martha snicker. Both of which were probably why Jack continued to do it.

It had been all the humor the four of them had managed since leaving Broad Oak.

He’d told Rose that John was right there, his human memories not hidden in the back of his mind as his had been in John’s. She’d blanched at that, and their bond throbbed with guilt and humiliation in the instant before she’d bottled that up. He hadn’t asked her why; she’d talk to him eventually. He hoped. But he’d wanted her to know.

Rose had closed herself off, and the Doctor hadn’t the chance to tell her that he remembered every single moment from the time he’d regained awareness on the road to Broad Oak to the second he opened the fob watch and his Time Lord essence repossessed him.

Every kiss, every touch, every taste. How Rose felt beneath him as he drove her higher and higher toward orgasm. How the curve of her bum felt beneath his hand as he brought that hand down onto her smooth, pale flesh, the scent of her arousal thick in the air as he did so.

His fingers clenched with the memory, the hot desire to feel her cool flesh move from pale to pink, to heated red at his touch. Now, as he stood watching her and remembering, his cock hardened, memoires of Rose looking up at him, her eyes heavy and golden, her chest heaving as she fought for breath.

Her slick arousal on his fingers and tongue, gripping his cock as he entered her.

Jaw clenched in a vain attempt to control himself, the Doctor used his considerable skill, and his once-total discipline over his body, to suppress his desire. The sharp need to feel Rose against him, the darker, erotic teasing their love making had taken on.

He cleared his throat and, with as much self-control as he could currently manage, stepped fully into the library.

And if he wanted Rose to kneel before him as she took him into her mouth, the Doctor very carefully did not send that image through their link. And if he wanted to taste Rose as she climaxed, her delicious juices on his lips and tongue, her taste exploding across his senses, he hid that away, too.

It’d been months since he’d been with her. It’d been two days. The Doctor was reminded of New Earth and promising to take things slow as she reacquainted herself with him.

Unaccountably nervous and, damn it, still aroused, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his trousers, his suit jacket discarded in their bedroom, and walked casually across the floor to the sofa.

“Missed you.” The Doctor sighed, one hand finding its way to the back of his neck and rubbing it awkwardly. That was not the first thing he wanted to say to her. Damn his irresponsible gob! But it wasn’t his gob’s fault. It was his.

In his rush to not kill the last of a species, to hide until the four could die off naturally, as they should have millennia ago, he’d neglected to think of how turning human would affect Rose. From the look on her face, deep in her eyes, stumbling across their bond, it affected her more than he’d have liked. More than he’d have thought.

Forty-five days with a human version of her husband—the Doctor didn’t think he’d have been able to cope if their roles had been reversed. But then Rose had always been the best part of him. The strongest and bravest.

“I missed you, too.” Rose smiled up at him, and her eyes shone with the faintest hint of lightness that had been missing since his return.

She watched him for a moment, studied him, bond still dimmed. Then she shifted, a silent invitation to join her. More relieved than he could say, the Doctor slipped between her and the corner of the sofa, arm stretching along the back so Rose could curl into him.

He had memories of sitting with her, laying down with her wrapped in his arms, but the sheer rightness of it, now as himself, moved through the Doctor in an inexpressible ball of warmth and hope and love.

“I love you.” It was a simply said statement and, surprised, the Doctor looked down at her. “I loved you before Broad Oak. And I loved John.” Her breath hitched and he desperately longed to know what she was feeling. But she kept herself locked off from him. He hated that.

“I won’t apologize for falling in love with him.”

She stopped and looked up at him, but the Doctor remained silent. He didn’t know what to say. John was him, but he was inexplicably jealous of the time John had with Rose. Though he carried the memories as surely as if they were his own, they had a faded, distant quality that told him they were different than if he’d made those memories himself.

“At first I thought it’d be easier if you didn’t know who I was, if we weren’t married,” Rose confessed and his hearts twisted in panic-fear-sadness. She played with her ring, and his gaze riveted on the movement. “But then it didn’t matter. You were my John. You’re my Doctor. And I won’t,” she repeated, harsher now, “apologize for loving either of you. Both of you.”

But her voice held that choked-tear clogged quality and he wondered what else troubled her.  
“Rose,” he began, but emotion held him in its stifling grasp. Love and awe and wonder that this woman, this beautiful, brilliant, compassionate, brave woman loved him. Could love him.

Cupping her face, he brought her close until their foreheads touched. “John loved you more than his life. More than mine. If he thought it’d keep you safe, he’d have sacrificed himself. Or sacrificed me.” The Doctor swallowed and admitted in a low voice, “He’d have done anything to keep you safe. As would I. In that, we’re no different.”

“Now you know how I feel.” Rose smiled, and through their bond let flow her love and acceptance. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her lips to his. When the Doctor wanted to deepen the kiss, she shook her head and pulled back.

Frowning, concerned, he nonetheless accepted her refusal and resumed his position on the couch, Rose curled against him. “What are you looking up?” he asked with a sweep of his hand to indicate the books and newspapers on the low table in front of them.

“I wanted to know what happened to Amélie,” she said. Her breath ghosted over the side of his neck and he shivered. Her fingers found his and curled around his hand, and for the first time since regaining himself, the Doctor felt at home.

“What did you find?” he whispered, afraid to speak too loud for fear of breaking the fragile spell woven around them.

“She was pregnant when she ran off,” Rose sighed. “I don’t know if it was Rupert’s or one of the Blueshirts, or some lover she had in the village.”

“She was scared, Rose,” he said, neither in defense of Amélie nor in condemnation. People made mistakes. It wasn’t the making of them that defined one. It was in how they rectified those mistakes.

He knew that better than anyone.

“Yes,” Rose agreed. Quiet and soft and yet with an undercurrent of steely condemnation. “Her actions put you in danger. That was unacceptable.”

She paused, and he looked down at her in surprise. Before he could do more than blink, Rose looked up at him. Her free hand cupped his face and her eyes were golden and fathomless and the Doctor felt himself drowning in her gaze.

He knew he’d seen her yesterday morning, but it also felt like years since he’d looked at her, really looked at her. Felt her.

“Don’t do anything like this again,” she ordered him fiercely. “I know why you did it, why you hid, but J—Doctor…” her voice caught and she shook her head.

The Doctor didn’t miss the way she stumbled over his name. He remembered the hot jealousy when she’d started to call him D before using John. Jealous of himself. Typical.

“You were in danger. Not just from the hunters, but Torchwood was after Jack. If they’d found you—” Rose stopped, and in her gaze he saw anger and helplessness and fear. It cut through his hearts and made him feel impotent with helplessness.

“You kept me safe,” he whispered.

Shifting, the Doctor moved to kneel before her on the floor. Now wasn’t the time for erotic shows of dominance, but the time to show her how very much she meant to him. His hearts. His life. He clasped her hands, his only lifeline to sanity and salvation; his anchor in the storm of his past. His Rose.

“You risked—Rose, I can never…” he shook his head. He could babble about Silous and scientists and the gorgeous Forests of Cheem, but when it came to his feelings about Rose, his words dried up and vanished.

Taking a deep breath, he tightened his hands around hers and looked straight at her. “No. No, I’ll never do that again. I swear. I won’t put you in danger like that again.”

“Doctor,” Rose sighed. Her lips pressed together and he saw her swallow hard. “I’d do anything to keep you safe. You know that, yeah?”

He nodded but didn’t say so because it terrified him, how she risked her life. He wasn’t worth it.

“I’d do all that again,” she whispered fiercely. “Live on a horse farm, befriend Amélie, fight the IRA, hunter possessed Torchwood, all of it. Just—I can’t—”

Rose shook her head, breathing heavy. He waited, unusually quiet. She leaned forward and pressed her forehead to his. Their bond flared sharply into focus, more vivid than when he was human, but no less intense.

“I just need time. I love you. I love John. In my heart you’re the same man.”

“We are,” he promised. “I know everything John did. Everything he thought and felt and wanted and wanted to do to you.”

Rose looked at him sharply and blushed, averting her eyes. The Doctor only grinned and gently held her face in his hands, so tenderly he saw tears in her eyes. “We’re the same man, Rose. The man who loves you.”

Her breath hitched and she nodded. The Doctor saw hesitancy in her gaze, felt it beat faintly over their link, but when Rose sat back, she pulled him onto the sofa with her.

“Tell me about Amélie,” he prodded softly.

“She went back to Scotland,” Rose began, slowly, as if imparting a memorized lecture.

“Took her mother’s maiden name, Pond. Her son, Roderick, became a doctor. His son, Augustus, was a banker and moved to Gloucestershire where he met his wife, Tabetha. The TARDIS only went up to our present timeline for some reason. But Augustus and Tabetha moved back to Scotland where their daughter was born. When they died, Tabetha’s sister, Sharon, raised the little girl in the small town where Augustus and Tabetha met.”

Rose stopped her reciting, but he remained quiet. His own anger at Amélie was unresolved. She’d endangered Rose, but she’d also been coerced into doing so. For a no second chances man, he suddenly found himself somewhat sympathetic to Amélie.

She still deserved to have been brought to justice. She’d endangered Rose. But his brilliant wife handled herself without equal and his love and pride in her swelled.

“What’s Rupert going to do with Broad Oak?” Rose asked instead, head still on his chest, fingers still tightly entwined.

“I don’t know,” the Doctor admitted. “I didn’t ask him.”

Truthfully, he hadn’t cared. He’d been far more worried about Rose, and Martha and Jack after the hunter/Torchwood attack. He’d only wanted to situate the hunters and find his wife. Hold her again. As himself.

“No matter what,” Rose said quietly, “I have really good memories of the farm. Maybe we can see what’s happened to it in our time? I’d hate to see it sold to developers.”

“Anything you wish, my hearts,” he murmured into her hair, breathing deeply of her remembered scent. “Come to bed.”

“I just want you to hold me tonight, Doctor,” she whispered, taking his hand and standing. Her eyes were fathomless in the dim library light, cryptic as they pulled him in. “Hold me and don’t let me go.”

“I’ll never let you go, my Rose,” he promised as he led her out of the library and towards their bedroom. “I don’t know how to.”


End file.
